What's This 'We'?

If we’re ‘all in this together’, for real,

How comes there is so little appeal,

Amongst those of us at the sharp end,

You know, the ones with least to spend.

If we’re ‘all in this together’, was true,

Why do the many pay while the few

Silver-spooned insulated millionaires,

Strut through life without any cares.

If we’re ‘all in this together’, made sense,

Why do the rich then go on the defence,

When we show them a way out of this hole,

One that doesn’t throw millions on the dole.

If we’re ‘all in this together’ why are the poor

Still standing in queues at the rich man’s door

Men made rich from the sweat of others,

By the toil of us workers; sisters and brothers.

We’re ‘all in this together’ us, working folk,

And, we can see the country ain’t broke;

If all tax cheats just paid what they owe,

We'd flourish and the economy'd grow.

The Doubting Solipsist

A solipsist took himself to task

The day he deigned to ask

All those living within his midst

Just who he was; did he exist.

His life had been, until today

Preordained in such a way

That there could be no doubt

‘He’ was what life was all about.

With seeds of doubt now sown

Our solipsist began to bemoan

That his thinking wasn’t exclusive

Others thoughts might be intrusive.

Since knowledge is not confined

To within the limits of one mind

How do you ascertain what’s truth

Who holds the burden of proof.

The ‘self alone’ does have a place

But, not for all the human race;

Yet, there are people out there

Who need solipsism’s rarefied air.

Our War Against the Media

Forever we’ve fought for inclusion. Once-upon-a-time we were largely invisible to the general public. Indeed, plaster representations of us stood outside shops with begging boxes. That was about as close as many people felt comfortable to us.

The pace of change, though slow, was beginning to gather speed; and in the last 20+ years we’ve seen legislation such as the NHS and Community Care Act; the introduction of DLA; the DDA in 1995; and Direct Payments.

Though there were still mountains to climb in the form of societal and economic barriers; our lives were beginning to improve; and we were gaining more freedom. With this freedom came greater visibility; which for the most part was a positive. No longer where we confined to the shadows; society’s mistakes hidden behind walls.

Visibility came with a price.

Stories about Incapacity Benefit began appearing towards the end of the Tories 18-year reign of despair. And, as a last act spite the Tory’s established the Benefits’ Integrity Project. The BIP was, ostensibly, put in place to clean up fraud amongst disabled claimants. Of 55,000 cases investigated the BIP unearthed only 50 potential cases of fraud – 0.09%!

You’ll note ’50 potential cases’. As I recall the overwhelming majority of these were not prosecuted, because it’s hardly fraud if you fail to report an improvement in your condition, especially when you don’t actually feel any improvement, or benefit of improvement.

The newshounds of the Heil and other such rags soon got onto the scent, deliberately, laid by the Tories and refreshed by New Labour. The scummy sensationalist-end of TV joined in the hue and cry; and before long disabled people were seen as cheats and parasites.

It’s probably no co-incidence that disability hate crime began to feature more frequently on the radar at this time. With media overexposure we became easy targets for those who allow newspapers to do their thinking. The kind of people who need to refer to the Sun or Heil in order to find out who today’s scapegoats are.

In some ways ATOS is the final manifestation of the process of our demonization. First, governments use us to massage their criminally high unemployment figures. Then, we outgrow our usefulness as ideology is re-twisted to shape the next desperate election manifesto. The media is then given licence to invent, or more properly re-invent, disabled people as lead-swinging cheats who have brought the country to its knees economically with their profligate ways.

The government knows the true extent of fraud amongst disabled claimants; but, in keeping silent it is in tacit agreement with scummy lazy journalists who regard us as legitimate targets to smear across the column inches of their rags.

Incensed by what they read people feel it is their public duty to abuse disabled people. So much so that recently a disabled woman collapsed outside a neighbour’s house. As she lay dying her neighbour felt it his civic duty to piss upon her while his friends laughed and recorded the incident on a mobile phone. Nobody deserves to spend their dying moments subjected to such inhumanity – what have we become!

Thus demonised it is easy for companies like ATOS to carry out the government’s bidding. Doubtlessly many of these ATOS assessors allow scummy newspapers to form their opinions for them. Why wouldn’t they, seeing as they’ve sold their professional integrity to the DWP for a pittance.

A Response to a Critical Review of my Hyde Park Speech

AC, thanks for your critical review of the speech I made on Saturday. When elected to act as spokesperson from the TUC Disability Committee I knew the biggest challenge would be the speech. As we know disabled people are at the brunt of both the cuts and are indeed, in some quarters, blamed for the deficit. Off the top of my head I can’t recall how many different areas we are facing cuts, somewhere between 14 and 16 I believe.

So, I was presented with this challenge. To make a speech on the effects of the cuts on disabled people coming from all directions over a two or three-year period. Cuts that will impact on people with visible and invisible disabilities; cuts that will hurt people with sensory and physical disabilities; cuts that will attack the benefits and resources of people with mental health and learning disabilities – and, all this in three minutes!

From time to time I’m invited, as Chair of Unite’s national disabled members committee to speak at Branch meetings on various areas of disability, mostly employment related, but as is so often the case on disability benefits and resources which are inextricably linked to the daily lives of our disabled members.

At these meetings I have the luxury of time. So, I’m able to translate the DLAs, the ILFs, the WCAs, the AtoWs into commonly held language. Here I can, in words of one syllable (though that’s hard with disability) explain how for instance Access to Work can be accessed; or, how Disability Living Allowance can act as a gateway to other resources.

The weeks running up to last Saturday were filled with emails and phone calls from people making suggestions as to the content of the speech. Someone wanted me to distinguish between visible and invisible disabilities; others asked that mental health issues be highlighted; a couple wanted me to say how disgraceful it was that ILF was being scrapped; and, someone even wanted me to make a special plea for people with neurodiverse conditions – this was fast becoming more of a Gettysburg Address than a three minute speech!

Finally, I was advised to try to keep it general, avoid specific impairment groups or organisations which, with one exception, I managed to do. Rather than attempt to tackle the main benefits’ changes and cuts, DLA to PIP, IB to ESA or JSA, cutting-back of Access to Work, etc I could have, for instance, focused on one area. The scrapping of DLA for a PIP would quite easily have occupied a three-minute slot.

Implying that most of the audience wouldn’t understand technical benefit words or jargon is perhaps to suggest that they have somehow or other totally ignored the media bombardment that disabled people have endured for the past 15 or more years – as evinced on these boards. It’s to imply they’ve not been reading or listening to the more serious end of the media who give coverage of benefits’ issues, most recently reports from the Budget.

Yes I could have delivered a three-minute speech that explained in lay terms what we, disabled people, are going through. For instance, I could have explained the purpose of Disability Living Allowance (around 30 seconds) going on to give an outline of its replacement, the Personalised Independence Payment (another 30 seconds). Then, the migration from IB to the two levels of ESA; explaining the losses in benefits if you draw the JSA short straw (60 seconds). And, finally giving a mere flavour of the viciousness that Work Capability Assessments produce would have, to do it justice, deserved a minute or two.

Life has taught me that the gift of retrospect is the most coveted above all others. While I take on AC’s criticisms in the constructive way they were offered; I’m not convinced three minutes is adequate time to convey a message of such enormity and complexity unless it generalises, which sadly means explanations on greater detail suffer.

Tonight I’m attending my local SOS’s meeting. This is the kind of venue where I’ll be able to explain more fully exactly what DLA is and how damaging it can be to an individual if they lose the benefit. Similarly, I can talk in greater depth about eligibility criteria for care support. Personally, I believe that local fora are better to get this kind of message across than a crowd of 300,000+ who, often, attend such events to add their weight and solidarity; who, on Saturday, attended to demonstrate their disquiet at the dissolution of the welfare state.

A Disabled Person in Denial

If there is any part of this that your body cannot cope with, it is something you cannot do. just like some of us cannot play netball. Why cant we just accept we cant do it and leave the people able to to follow the queue and ride etiquette to have fun amongst themselves

Sarah Helen, if you propose ‘missing the point’ as an Olympic event for the games after next, I’ll second you. Needless to say we’d be entering you for the event and doubtlessly you’d bring back gold medals, especially one in the freestyle category.

Sure, if your impairment is such that you can’t run, don’t be too upset that you can’t get a place on the wing for Chelsea. If you have osteogenesis imperfecta looking for a career as a boxer might not be advisable. However, these are things that limit you due to the nature of the impairment, not disability.

Because you cannot physically run means you cannot play professional football. No amount of reasonable adjustments will rectify this. Similarly, if you are prone to easily broken or fractured bones there are no reasonable adjustments possible to counter the likelihood of serious injury – even when your opponents only a punch bag!

For most theme park rides the user does not have to have special skills or abilities. Therefore, provided the ride itself does not present a threat to the user, why shouldn’t disabled people be able to enjoy these thrills?

Stretching such logic to its most preposterous limits would mean because a train is too high to board we should just accept we can’t board the train and leave the people able to board to do so and enjoy the ability to use trains.

Why stop there? If you have vision impairment and need adapted equipment to enable you to work, just accept that there is somebody who can do the job unaided and so let them have the benefit of employment. For, to do otherwise would be rank selfishness on the part of the blind woman.

Reasonable adjustments can be made for queuing, with little or no cost to either he service provider or its other customers. However, if people regard disabled people receiving reasonable adjustments as some sort of benefit, then there is little hope for us ever-achieving equality. What kind of society are we on the outermost fringes of that would begrudge another human being the most insignificant of concessions.

Some Cuts Coming Your Way

A rough list of benefits and resources cuts hitting, or about to hit, disabled people.

1. DLA to PIP

2. Possibility of 80,000 living in residential homes losing DLAMC

3. IB to ESA or JSA

4. Contributory ESA, paid only to those with sufficient NI contributions, is to be time limited to 12 months,

5. WCA

6. If migrated to JSA people losing disability status; thus, unable to access extra resources given to disabled jobseekers

7. ILF being scrapped

8. Housing benefit

9. The removal of security of tenure from social housing tenants disproportionately impact on disabled people

10. Eligibility criteria dropped for all but critical care support

11. Care packages cut

12. Access to Work is cutting back on items it will fund

13. Cuts to community transport systems

14. Removal of eligibility for Freedom Passes to people with mental health disabilities

15. TaxiCard’s subsidy is dropping; the contribution made by the user doubling; and, the two-swipe system being abolished. So, limiting the resource to around about a one mile journey.

16. Cuts in police budgets will see setbacks in their response to disability hate crimes

Broken of Britain

Broken of Britain

The following piece was found on the 'Broken of Britain' website (see below for link) and gives a detailed breakdown of some of the cuts faced by disabled people under this butcher's crew of a coalition.

http://thebrokenofbritain.blogspot.com/2011/01/cuts-list.html

Cuts List

1. Housing: There is a major shortage of accessible housing in the social sector meaning many disabled people are already forced to rent in the more costly private sector where it is incredibly difficult to find an accessible property. Estate agents do not have to keep details of adaptations or access features, so in addition to the significant rent shortfalls most Local Housing Allowance recipients face, disabled people are additionally disadvantaged by barriers to searching for a home. Mind The Step estimates that 78, 000 households which include a wheelchair user live in homes which are not fully accessible. The allocation of accessible social housing is already woefully inadequate; in 2008-9 only 22% of local authority and housing association ‘wheelchair standard’ properties allocated to households including a wheelchair user. Plans to remove security of tenure from social housing tenants disproportionately impact on disabled people, as costly adaptations are a barrier to moving regardless of size of property.

2. Housing Benefits: Provision for an additional bedroom for a non-resident carer where a disabled person has an established need for overnight care is a welcome step but will not be awarded automatically. It also fails to address the need for extra space to use a wheelchair, store equipment, receive dialysis or other medical treatment experienced by many disabled people. Anyone under 35 who is disabled but not in receipt of middle or high rate care component of Disability Living Allowance will receive the shared room rate despite shared housing being impossible to access for many disabled people for a myriad of reasons. The recent announcement that DLA is to be scrapped means it is currently impossible to assess the full impact of these two changes. From October 2011 the LHA will be reduced from the 50^th percentile of Broad Market Rent to the 30^th forcing disabled people to rent the very cheapest properties which are more likely to be inaccessible. Linking LHA to the Consumer Price Index which does not take into account housing costs will further limit disabled people’s access to suitable housing. Housing benefits are to be time limited to 12 months for people in receipt of Jobseekers Allowance, after which benefit will be reduced by 10% for those still out of work. This must be understood in the context of the controversial Work Capability Assessment designed to strictly limit the numbers of disabled people entitled to Employment & Support Allowance. Discretionary housing benefits have been increased in recognition of the expected hardships the reduction in LHA will cause, but these can only be claimed for a maximum 13 weeks meaning they are completely unsuitable to protect disabled people’s homes in the longer term. Changes to the amount of mortgage interest payments have been estimated to potentially lead to additional 64, 000 disabled people becoming homeless.

3. DLA/PIP Sweeping changes were announced to DLA in the CSR which intend to reduce overall eligibility by 20-25%. The higher rate mobility component of Disability Living Allowance used by disabled people to pay for transport outside their homes via motability vehicles, powered wheelchairs and accessible taxis will no longer be paid to state funded care home residents as the government deem the local authorities should provide transport services. However, people self funding their care home places will continue to receive the HRM, making the argument that LA’s provide appropriate transport dubious at best. This will see 9/10 Livability care home residents as ‘prisoners’ in their own homes, left with just £22 p/wk to pay for toiletries, glasses, clothing, entertainment and potentially also for suitable wheelchairs costing tens of thousands of pounds, currently often funded via HRM.

4. In ADDITION to this reduction the government have now announced their intention to scrap DLA altogether and replace it with Personal Independence Payment (PIP). The intent is to reassess all DLA recipients from 2013 at vast cost and further reduction to entitlement. The consultation implies that anyone who receives support from a source such as social services will no longer be entitled to PIP. It also implies that if there a mobility aid such as a wheelchair could be used that will preclude entitlement to PIP even if the only way to fund purchase of that mobility aid had previously been through DLA. Disabled People’s Organisations are asking the question, ‘just which disabled people will actually be able to qualify for this benefit’?

5. IB/ESA Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) is the controversial replacement to Incapacity Benefit described in June 2010 as ‘unfit for purpose’ and the ‘responsibility’ of ministers by Danny Alexander MP. ESA will be replaced by the Universal Credit but reassessment by the flawed WCA, criticised as not working properly by its own creator will continue at huge financial and personal cost.

6. Contributory ESA, paid only to those with sufficient NI contributions, is to be time limited to 12 months, raising very serious questions about the ‘insurance’ part of NI. This will cause significant hardship to families reliant upon ESA and may well lead to further unemployment and higher overall benefit claims as families find the only way they can provide care to the disabled member is for the carer to drop out of employment altogether.

7. There are many changes to the provision, entitlement to and charges paid for receiving social care. The Independent Living Fund which provided for the highest level support needs in combination with the local authorities is now to be scrapped without consultation. Despite the government insisting the local authorities should not need to reduce the provision of social care, areas such as Birmingham are restricting it to those with ‘extra critical’ needs only, a higher threshold than the four bands set out in the government’s fair access to care services guidance whilst most local authorities intend to increase charges. The practical impact of this can be seen in the recent decision byKensington & Chelsea council to remove night care from a former ballerina, who will now be left to lie on soiled incontinence pads at night as it is cheaper than providing a carer to assist her to a commode.

8. Access to Work provide funding for disability-related equipment for working disabled people. It supported some 37,000 disabled workers last year. Touted as "improvements" the reform redefines what it is "reasonable" to expect an employer to provide for disabled staff. Some things which will no longer be funded are voice activated software and specialist chairs. It might seem reasonable to say that an employer hiring for an office position should provide the new employee with a chair but a specialist chair costs significantly more than standard, sometimes many thousands. Multiply that across all the equipment on the list and suddenly it becomes significantly more expensive for an employer to hire a disabled employee.

9. Transport. In addition to the removal of the high rate mobility component of DLA from care home residents (starting 2012) there are also cuts to various council funded communityThe impact of the cuts varies in each borough but the general picture is of disabled people facing cost increases of over 65% for a vastly restricted service. transport schemes. Taxicard is a vital scheme which provides door to door transport for older and disabled people in London.

Please add any cuts you are aware of in the comments section and we will update this list accordingly, thank you

Waiting for the Off in Northumberland Street

At around 11 am we were released from the union building in Northumberland Street, next to the Sherlock Holmes pub, and Alice, she with the megaphone, gave us some instructions for the march.

You can see yours truly in his trade mark flat cap, psyching myself up for the event!

YeeHaw...we're off!

The Text of my Hyde Park Speech on Saturday 26 March 2011

“HELLO WEMBLEY!!!

WHOOPS – SORRY WRONG GIG!

Hello Comrades, I’m Seán McGovern a disabled trade union activist; and, I’m honoured to be here today part of this anti-cuts movement. Which is growing daily!

Comrades, disabled people are fighting for the most basic of human rights.

• The right to work;
• the right to a living income for those who can’t work;
• the right to sustenance;
• the right to decent care support;
• the right to live without hate crime; and
• the right to dignity!

May I congratulate some of our popular media? Well done the Daily Heil, the Sun and Express, you purveyors of disablist propaganda. Along with the rubbish-end of TV and attention seeking politicians you’ve managed to demonise disabled people.

In times of recession and economic downturn governments and their media hounds need a scapegoat; history has shown us this; today it’s the turn of disabled people – who’s next?

No wonder hate crime against disabled people is on the rise.

While the bankers caused this economic crisis disabled people’s support and benefits are being blamed.

So much so that we are feeling the brunt of the ConDem ideological cuts.

They say these cuts aren’t ideological – liars!

· Replacing Disability Living Allowance with a Personal Independence Payment, with predicted savings of 20% – naked ideology!

· Introducing a draconian set of Work Capability Assessments – viciously ideological!

· Migrating disabled people from Incapacity Benefit to poverty level JobSeekers Allowance – driven by ideology!

· Removing hundreds of items from Access to Work; a scheme that earns 20% for every pound spent! – stupid ideology!

· Supported employment schemes such as Remploy under threat; thus adding to an ever-increasing unemployment queue and benefits bill – misguided ideology!

Not content with attacking our jobs and benefits they’re bent on depriving us of life enhancing resources. And calling it the BIG SOCIETY!

Day centres are closing. Council care is being cut. Direct Payments bills slashed as eligibility criteria are squeezed to critical only.

Comrades, every day disabled people are dying due to ConDem ideologically driven policies. They must go!

Today the struggle shifts up a gear! From here we must return to our cities, towns and villages to organise everyone against this ConDem regime; these enemies of disabled people, these enemies of the people – our class!!”

http://vimeo.com/21652229

http://vimeo.com/album/1562316/page:4

A Poor Night's Sleep: with a strange interruption

Woke up Saturday morning in quite a bit of pain and after an indifferent night’s sleep. The usual pain-halting sleep coupled with having to pee every hour or so isn’t exactly the remedy for a good night’s kip. However, another factor was added to my fractured sleep via a strange dream.

Dreams are dreams; some from which I wake up screaming, though not so often these days. Yet, this dream did kick me back into consciousness not in a nightmarish way; no, more in an uncomfortable, even slightly embarrassed way – though, I’m not sure why I should be embarrassed with my dreams

Briefly, in my dream I was on a stage in front of a massive crowd. In my hands I had some notes, from which I knew I was about to address the sea of humanity who were spread before me, almost to the horizon, waving arms, banners, flags and assorted wavy kinds of things.

Coming closer to the front of the stage, I noticed I was wearing a three-piece-suit with massive lapels and flared trousers. Getting to the mike I took a closer look at the audience which, on closer inspection, was made up with long-haired people dressed in 1970s clothing – I guessed the ones with the beards were the men, and the others women

As I reached for the mike the noise reached a crescendo that only abated as I began softly singing à la Harry Nilsson:

“No I cant forget this evening
Or your face as you were leaving
But I guess that’s just the way this story goes,
You always smile
But in your eyes your sorrow shows...”

At which point I woke up in a cold sweat scratching at a beard I didn’t have and wondering why the hell Harry Nilsson, a singer I had little time for when he was alive and at the height of career in the 70s, was invading my privacy nearly forty-years later.

Start of the Great March 26 March

Shan’t attempt to give a broad canvas of Saturday’s march, as the day didn’t pan out that way for me. No, the event was a veritable whirligig of wonderful snapshots; a kaleidoscope of different activities fused together to create one of the most successful labour movement demos ever!

After several incidents on the way to the event we were led out by the march stewards and invited to take up positions behind the lead banner – you know, the one held at about chest height. The TUC had allocated me a steward for the march, Karl a Unite organiser and good Comrade; and, Karl spotting the last remaining place along the banner’s length pushed me towards it.

There had been an agreement that, due to the disproportionate punishment we were receiving by these cuts, disabled people should visible at the front of the march.

So far so good; however, as I put my arm forward to hold the banner, as if from nowhere an elderly woman rushed past me and hopping over my legs and footplate gripped onto the remaining section of banner.

Not very comradely; and, of course now there was no visible representation of disabled people at the very front of the march; something we’d been promised. The banner snatcher being taller blocked me from view.

For the sake of solidarity, I won’t name the sprightly 76-year old Vice President, and London Region secretary, of the National Pensioners Convention; but may I ask next time, please pick on someone your own size!

Sean's March 26 Hyde Park Speech

The first link is to my speech to hundreds of thousands of people in Hyde Park at around 3:45 pm on Saturday 26^th March, 2011; and, the second opens up the other speeches.

Seán

http://vimeo.com/21652229

http://vimeo.com/album/1562316/page:4

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.

Lambeth Pan Disability Forum

The next meeting of the Lambeth Pan Disability Forum will take place on Thursday 13th January at 336 Brixton Road from 2 pm until 4 pm. Please, make every effort to attend the meeting; there is much to be discussed and done over the next few weeks with the impending welfare cuts.

Seán

Invoking Godwin's Rule of Nazi Analogies

I’m very uneasy about comparing the difficulties disabled people in the UK are, and have been, undergoing for some time now with what happened in Nazi Germany. The anti-disability stories in the press; the aggressive pursuit of disability benefits’ cheats; governments’ reactionary responses to Incapacity Benefit and DLA; the government’s insistence in using a one-size-fits-all policy when it comes to employing disabled people; the vicious cuts in adults services soon to be rained upon us.

We are indeed beset by an uncompromising regime ideologically bent on dismantling the welfare state; and, if in the process this sees us, disabled people, as part of the collateral damage, well just as Thatcher’s regime thought mass unemployment a price worth paying, so this crew will view the plight of disabled people in the same way.

Having said this, and being fairly confident that things will worse for a lot of us, I cannot sit back and accept the arguments that what we’re going through is in any way comparable to the systematic processes of eugenics and then murder, by means invented by the most awful of minds, visited upon disabled people in Hitler’s Germany and across occupied Europe.

Please, we need to have a sense of proportion here. While the Tories are wrong to impose such draconian, most importantly totally unnecessary, that is ideologically rather that fiscally driven, measures upon us we are not being herded into institutions and systematically killed. Nor are we having the most fiendish of experiments carried out on us, often without anaesthetics.

Yes, the Tories are the nasty party; yet, they’re a far cry from the Nazi Party. When we invoke Godwin as a comparator; when we attempt to show all bad governments in the same light as the Nazis; we do ourselves a disservice. Not only that we actually diminish the horrors of the Nazi regime.

Personally, I don’t view the Tory regime under which we’re suffering as a fascist or Nazi party. The draconian measures they’re imposing on me and people like me are harsh, yes; but, I’m not going to end up in a camp; nor am I going to be experimented upon, dipped into freezing vats of water continuously to measure my resistances to cold; or, have areas of my body subjected to heat in order to find treatments for burns, etc. These were the kind of experiments that Nazi doctors carried out on disabled people, Jews etc.

Finally, I’m no apologist for this Tory crew we are saddled with. I despise them with my heart and soul; and, would call out to all disabled people who are able to take part in any local actions that are taking place against the cuts. I’d also like to invite you all to the TUC’s March for the Alternative: Jobs – Growth – Justice on 26th March in Central London. I’m speaking with the TUC, the demo’s organiser, about allowing disabled people to be at the front of the march from start to finish.

Suspected victims of Nazi euthanasia found in Austria

A construction project excavation in the disused grounds of a psychiatric hospital in Hall, Austria revealed the remains of possibly hundreds of mentally and physically disabled people murdered by the Nazis between 1942 and 1945.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/suspected-victims-of-nazi-euthanasia-found-in-austria-2176117.html

The ghosts from those dark pages of our history still haunt us today, and quite rightly. I don't want to forget the depths into which men plunged in order to pursue a wicked and twisted ideology.

Those murdered thousands may now only be a footnote in history; but, they were once alive like us. They once had dreams, just like us; but unlike us their lives were stolen from them. Their futures became part of our history.

RIP all victims of man’s inhumanity to man...

ILF

ILF is now only allowing recipients to hold up 4 weeks payments of ILF funding. So, once your bills, tax, insurance etc have been taken into account any surplus must be returned to the ILF.

Aside from statutory payments, according to the ILF, we’re not allowed to accrue more than the four week amount. In other words if, for instance, my full-time PA goes off sick for two or three weeks and I’m forced to use agency care I’d probably not have enough money in my contingency fund to cover the ILF portion of the bill.

Despite three fairly lengthy conversations with ILF staff; I’m getting exactly the same response. Any monies over and above normal outgoings (wages, tax and insurance) and four weeks ILF payments must be returned to the centre.

ILF are also suggesting that we hold their payments in separate accounts to any other DPs. ILF also pay at a lower rate than LAs. Following advice I raised the ILF rates to those of the LA when the pay last pay rise took place in April 2009 – the contingency I’d accrued enabled me to do so.

Therefore, I’m subsidising the ILF portion of my care package. The situation I could find myself in now is one where I have to go back to my PAs and inform them they’re looking at a cut in their hourly rates by x and y respectively – standard and enhanced hourly rates.

While I cannot pay my PAs at different rates to one another for doing a job of equal value; it seems I may have to pay them a LA rate for part of a shift and an ILF rate for another part of the same shift; doing this at a flat rate and an enhanced rate.

On bank accounts, it looks as though in order to separate the different streams of money two accounts will need to be set up. This is despite being advised from the outset, by both the LA and ILF, that lodging both pots of money in the one account was not only acceptable practice, but probably easier to manage than having separate accounts.

Currently I pay two PAs; one full time; while the other works weekends. Two sets of time sheets are produced; and, I pay out two sets of wages on a four-weekly basis. If I’m forced to toe the ILF line it will mean I have two bank accounts from which I pay two employees four different rates of pay – LA flat rate; LA overtime rate; ILF (lower) flat rate; ILF (lower) overtime rate.

Up until now I have, quite happily, dealt with wages, tax and insurance deductions, holiday pay, etc. If I’m compelled to change the, in my view reasonable, way in which I’m being asked to handle ILF affairs, then I’m in danger of losing my independence over the whole DPs system of care provision.