Please note we are aware that putting the easy read version into Jpeg format makes it inaccessible to people with visual impairments and we are working on getting the PDF version uploaded.
Update: PDF version available here
Non-partisan UK-based Disability campaign. Advocacy for people with invisible illness and/or physical & mental health conditions. Also Carers, their Families and Friends. Our individual voices are too quiet to be heard, but collectively we can shout loud enough to drown out this tide of abuse against us. Disability Hate Crime, lack of full legal protection, people in care homes costing too much to be let out and not one political party willing to fight for us.
Showing posts with label welfare. Show all posts
Showing posts with label welfare. Show all posts
Wednesday, 12 October 2011
Disability And Sickness At Labour Conference - The Easy Read Version
Please note we are aware that putting the easy read version into Jpeg format makes it inaccessible to people with visual impairments and we are working on getting the PDF version uploaded.
Update: PDF version available here
Friday, 30 September 2011
We're two thirds of the way through conference season and it's fair to say the spoonie warriors are suffering badly from exhaustion. It all started with the Liberal Democrats in Birmingham, with stunning performances from speakers like Shana Pezaro, culminating in the Liberal Democrats passing a motion to challenge some of the most destructive parts of the Welfare Reform Bill, meaning that it is now official Liberal Democrat policy to oppose some of the government's plans.
I managed to attend the Disability Benefits Consortium event at the Liveral Democrat conference even though The Broken of Britain can't even afford stamps or cards because I happened to have a place to stay in Birmingham and a boyfriend good enough to push me to and from the event despite his personal discomfort at being so close to politicians. The Lib Dem DBC event was outside the secure zone so I could attend without a pass, but although the actual venue was very accessible, getting there was a problem. The hotel had been advised to expect disabled people, and parking in their car park made available to us...but it was impossible to drive to the hotel car park because the roads surrounding it were within the secure zone. If my boyfriend hadn't been prepared to give up his time to push me half a mile to and from the event it would not have been possible to get me there. Fortunately he stepped up and the event was well worth attending.
Big credit to Steve Winyard from the RNIB who stood up at the end of the DBC event and called upon all the charities to focus on aggressive campaigning against the damaging parts of the Welfare Reform Bill as an immediate priority. Grassroots campaigners are now eagerly awaiting the rest of the big charities to follow RNIB's stance and remember their most important duty is to support those of us they purport to represent.
Labour's conference was held in Liverpool which made it easier for our penniless campaigners to attend as I live close enough to drive to Liverpool and to provide the fabulous Sue Marsh with accomodation as she was there in her dual roles as campaigner for The Broken of Britain and as delegate for her local Labour party.
Liverpool's a great city and Scousers are warm, welcoming people so we all owe our thanks to the nice car park man who I blagged free, all day parking from by explaining we were disability rights campaigners- it was supposed to be £12 a day which is far too expensive for us!
Sue had a conference pass in her Labour role, but as I am not a member of any political party it proved impossible for us to find, or afford a conference pass for me, even though Lord Prescott helpfully tweeted asking Labour to provide me with a pass. That meant I had to stay outside the secure zone until Wednesday's open day for non Labour members for which I had a pass.
Still, we networked and campaigned as best we could. Short of both spoons and equipment Sue and I spent our time at conference sharing a mobility scooter - which unsurprisingly attracted an awful lot of attention. Thanks to Merseyside Police for smiling and waving at us rather than arresting us for inappropriate mobility scooting behaviour!
Unfortunately, the event organised by Disability Benefits Consortium on the welfare reform bill had to be moved at the last minute inside the secure zone, meaning I couldn't attend and no-one from The Broken of Britain was able to be there to put your concerns across. It had been booked in the Albert Dock's Premier Inn - who insist they told conference organisers it wasn't fully accessible, but conference claimed of course that Premier Inn had told them it was fully accessible. None of this will surprise sick or disabled people but it did seem to come as a surprise to others. Having made up a bed to sleep in the back of my car so that I could manage to be at the event after a morning networking this was very frustrating news.
Despite the lack of access and disappointments about welfare being whitewashed from the Conference we picked ourselves up and carried on. Monday finished me off completely and I spent Tuesday at home in a haze of pain, exhaustion and heavy medication while Sue bravely went back into battle on all our behalfs. In public Sue and I manage to hold it together and appear eloquent and in control, but my boyfriend and her husband get the uncensored version where we can't even string two words together because we're so exhausted.
Wednesday morning in my flat was a scene to behold as Sue and I attempted to transform ourselves from pale, dark eyed, exhausted women into some sort of glamourous, publicly presentable version. Somehow we pulled it off and made it into the secure zone once again sharing the BendyBus. Fortunately there don't appear to be any photos either of Sue and I on the scooter together, or of Giles from the Daily Politics show scooting through conference with me sat on his knee!
We met up with Dame Anne Begg for a drink to discuss welfare issues, hung out with bloggers and then went off for the main attraction of the day, the Labour open day question and answer session with Ed Miliband.
Poor Ed. As my parent's commented, he just didn't know what he was taking on and the question Sue and I had so carefully crafted handbagged him good and proper. Being a spoonie I had to leave the Q&A session to go for a wee immediately after Ed Miliband responded to our question and poor Sue was left in the hall not knowing what had happened to me! I was followed to the toilet by camera crews from the BBC and ITN so it was a while before Sue found me and she was so worried I'd been kidnapped by the Labour party ;)
Although Sue and I were both shaking with exhaustion at this point we couldn't hang around because I was booked to speak at Left Foot Forward's fringe event held in Baby Blue Bar....which turned out to be accessible only by a flight of concrete steps. Huge thanks go to Will Straw for his knight in shining armour role who carried me into the venue and the twitter follower who introduced himself to me and carried me back out of the venue** Sue and I both got back on to the BendyBus and arrived in style at the Labour tweet up...we were so exhausted we couldn't stay long but it was great to meet everyone and be written on by The Farm even if two days later I've still got black pen on my arm!
So...that's two conferences attended, blagged, networked by The Broken of Britain and all without a penny of funding. Ed Miliband has been in touch to say he intends to honour his promise to meet with us and discuss sickness and/or disability issues in relation to welfare which we are all very much looking forward to.
Next week conference season finishes with the Conservative conference in Manchester. We don't have a conference pass, and don't anticipate being able to find one at such short notice, but we'd love to meet Iain Duncan Smith, Maria Miller or David Cameron there if they are willing to match Ed Miliband's promise to meet with sick/disabled people actually affected by their 'reforms'! Assuming the Disability Benefits Consortium welfare event remains outside the secure zone I'll be attending that at Conservative Party Conference and we'll keep you updated as to any developments.
But for now, your two exhausted spoonie warriors just want to get through the rest of today and spend a wekend resting up, enjoying the weather and a complete holiday from welfare.
*we're working on transcripts for people with hearing impairments and United Response are trying to put together an easy read version so please give us some time to get those out
I managed to attend the Disability Benefits Consortium event at the Liveral Democrat conference even though The Broken of Britain can't even afford stamps or cards because I happened to have a place to stay in Birmingham and a boyfriend good enough to push me to and from the event despite his personal discomfort at being so close to politicians. The Lib Dem DBC event was outside the secure zone so I could attend without a pass, but although the actual venue was very accessible, getting there was a problem. The hotel had been advised to expect disabled people, and parking in their car park made available to us...but it was impossible to drive to the hotel car park because the roads surrounding it were within the secure zone. If my boyfriend hadn't been prepared to give up his time to push me half a mile to and from the event it would not have been possible to get me there. Fortunately he stepped up and the event was well worth attending.
Big credit to Steve Winyard from the RNIB who stood up at the end of the DBC event and called upon all the charities to focus on aggressive campaigning against the damaging parts of the Welfare Reform Bill as an immediate priority. Grassroots campaigners are now eagerly awaiting the rest of the big charities to follow RNIB's stance and remember their most important duty is to support those of us they purport to represent.
Labour's conference was held in Liverpool which made it easier for our penniless campaigners to attend as I live close enough to drive to Liverpool and to provide the fabulous Sue Marsh with accomodation as she was there in her dual roles as campaigner for The Broken of Britain and as delegate for her local Labour party.
Liverpool's a great city and Scousers are warm, welcoming people so we all owe our thanks to the nice car park man who I blagged free, all day parking from by explaining we were disability rights campaigners- it was supposed to be £12 a day which is far too expensive for us!
Sue had a conference pass in her Labour role, but as I am not a member of any political party it proved impossible for us to find, or afford a conference pass for me, even though Lord Prescott helpfully tweeted asking Labour to provide me with a pass. That meant I had to stay outside the secure zone until Wednesday's open day for non Labour members for which I had a pass.
Still, we networked and campaigned as best we could. Short of both spoons and equipment Sue and I spent our time at conference sharing a mobility scooter - which unsurprisingly attracted an awful lot of attention. Thanks to Merseyside Police for smiling and waving at us rather than arresting us for inappropriate mobility scooting behaviour!
Unfortunately, the event organised by Disability Benefits Consortium on the welfare reform bill had to be moved at the last minute inside the secure zone, meaning I couldn't attend and no-one from The Broken of Britain was able to be there to put your concerns across. It had been booked in the Albert Dock's Premier Inn - who insist they told conference organisers it wasn't fully accessible, but conference claimed of course that Premier Inn had told them it was fully accessible. None of this will surprise sick or disabled people but it did seem to come as a surprise to others. Having made up a bed to sleep in the back of my car so that I could manage to be at the event after a morning networking this was very frustrating news.
Despite the lack of access and disappointments about welfare being whitewashed from the Conference we picked ourselves up and carried on. Monday finished me off completely and I spent Tuesday at home in a haze of pain, exhaustion and heavy medication while Sue bravely went back into battle on all our behalfs. In public Sue and I manage to hold it together and appear eloquent and in control, but my boyfriend and her husband get the uncensored version where we can't even string two words together because we're so exhausted.
Wednesday morning in my flat was a scene to behold as Sue and I attempted to transform ourselves from pale, dark eyed, exhausted women into some sort of glamourous, publicly presentable version. Somehow we pulled it off and made it into the secure zone once again sharing the BendyBus. Fortunately there don't appear to be any photos either of Sue and I on the scooter together, or of Giles from the Daily Politics show scooting through conference with me sat on his knee!
We met up with Dame Anne Begg for a drink to discuss welfare issues, hung out with bloggers and then went off for the main attraction of the day, the Labour open day question and answer session with Ed Miliband.
Poor Ed. As my parent's commented, he just didn't know what he was taking on and the question Sue and I had so carefully crafted handbagged him good and proper. Being a spoonie I had to leave the Q&A session to go for a wee immediately after Ed Miliband responded to our question and poor Sue was left in the hall not knowing what had happened to me! I was followed to the toilet by camera crews from the BBC and ITN so it was a while before Sue found me and she was so worried I'd been kidnapped by the Labour party ;)
Although Sue and I were both shaking with exhaustion at this point we couldn't hang around because I was booked to speak at Left Foot Forward's fringe event held in Baby Blue Bar....which turned out to be accessible only by a flight of concrete steps. Huge thanks go to Will Straw for his knight in shining armour role who carried me into the venue and the twitter follower who introduced himself to me and carried me back out of the venue** Sue and I both got back on to the BendyBus and arrived in style at the Labour tweet up...we were so exhausted we couldn't stay long but it was great to meet everyone and be written on by The Farm even if two days later I've still got black pen on my arm!
So...that's two conferences attended, blagged, networked by The Broken of Britain and all without a penny of funding. Ed Miliband has been in touch to say he intends to honour his promise to meet with us and discuss sickness and/or disability issues in relation to welfare which we are all very much looking forward to.
Next week conference season finishes with the Conservative conference in Manchester. We don't have a conference pass, and don't anticipate being able to find one at such short notice, but we'd love to meet Iain Duncan Smith, Maria Miller or David Cameron there if they are willing to match Ed Miliband's promise to meet with sick/disabled people actually affected by their 'reforms'! Assuming the Disability Benefits Consortium welfare event remains outside the secure zone I'll be attending that at Conservative Party Conference and we'll keep you updated as to any developments.
But for now, your two exhausted spoonie warriors just want to get through the rest of today and spend a wekend resting up, enjoying the weather and a complete holiday from welfare.
*we're working on transcripts for people with hearing impairments and United Response are trying to put together an easy read version so please give us some time to get those out
Monday, 1 August 2011
Let's Do The TimeWarp Again...
"Coercion, tears, government rhetoric, employment gap and welfare reform" from Disability Now.
It sounds like a contemporary article doesn't it? All the ingredients are there, a desire to reduce the number of those claiming IB, disability groups outraged and a complicit media readily producing articles on benefit scroungers.
Except this was 2007* not 2011. Not of course that you'd know that unless you were well informed enough to know who Peter Hain is** and that his tenure of the DWP was in 2007 under New Labour.
*estimated
**Winner of the "I've been Tango'd political award"
It sounds like a contemporary article doesn't it? All the ingredients are there, a desire to reduce the number of those claiming IB, disability groups outraged and a complicit media readily producing articles on benefit scroungers.
Except this was 2007* not 2011. Not of course that you'd know that unless you were well informed enough to know who Peter Hain is** and that his tenure of the DWP was in 2007 under New Labour.
*estimated
**Winner of the "I've been Tango'd political award"
Wednesday, 15 June 2011
Tuesday, 14 June 2011
The politics of "I met a man"
"I met a black man in his 40's who'd been in the Royal Navy for 30 years" was a (paraphrased) refrain from David Cameron during the Leader's Debates last year. Now, it seems Ed Miliband has met a man too. Unlike David's man, Ed's wasn't a hard working member of a minority group who'd been serving in the armed forces longer than he'd been an adult. Oh no. Ed's man was a 'scrounger' A good man, a man who wanted to do his best by his family, but still a scrounger whom Ed, without any medical qualifications, training or experience feels able to inform the nation could work if he felt like it.
Maybe he could work, maybe he can't. In this sense it doesn't really matter - using an IT company to administer so called 'fit to work medicals' which are nothing more than government decided descriptors is no more accurate than using Ed's lack of medical expertise to decide upon people's fitness to work. Something that Liverpool MP Steven Timms could have told Ed had he bothered to ask. There are already over 1000 genuinely sick and/or disabled people in Merseyside who've been refused sickness benefits despite being too ill to work. Despite poor mathematical skills and the lack of Ed's research team, even I can work out that will extrapolate to 10's if not 100's of thousands of sick and disabled people being refused the benefits which they have paid for via national insurance across Britain.
Issues of benefit fraud and welfare dependancy are important to tackle, none hate benefit fraud more than those forced into a position of genuine reliance upon the benefits system. The increasing scrounger rhetoric is terrifying to those of us knowing that no matter how much we wish to work, how much we try, not only is the system stacked against us, but that the health issues we face are inescapable. Whilst some small steps have been made by Labour MP's such as Liam Byrne to separate out the sick and/or disabled from the unemployed, it's such a quiet statement against the torrent of abuse heaped upon sick and/or disabled people by the wider media and political climate it leaves room for the one message Labour sent to the electorate via Ed Miliband yesterday.
Incapacity benefit claimants are irresponsible scroungers. Even when they're actually decent, honest, have worked, become genuinely incapacitated and are now trying to bring up their families as best they can, they're still scroungers who should just try harder.
The detail of the rest of the speech didn't matter. The message was hammered home in the first paragraph. The Labour party, the party of the people, the party of social justice, led by Ed Miliband are more than happy to be seen as the party demonising disabled people.
As the 'reformed' Work Capability Assessment originally introduced by New Labour continues to deny benefits to genuinely sick and/or disabled people, and the press slowly move away from sensationalist scrounger stories to reporting more and more genuinely ill people being denied benefits, Ed's slam a scrounger policy will undoubtedly return to incapacitate him.
Maybe he could work, maybe he can't. In this sense it doesn't really matter - using an IT company to administer so called 'fit to work medicals' which are nothing more than government decided descriptors is no more accurate than using Ed's lack of medical expertise to decide upon people's fitness to work. Something that Liverpool MP Steven Timms could have told Ed had he bothered to ask. There are already over 1000 genuinely sick and/or disabled people in Merseyside who've been refused sickness benefits despite being too ill to work. Despite poor mathematical skills and the lack of Ed's research team, even I can work out that will extrapolate to 10's if not 100's of thousands of sick and disabled people being refused the benefits which they have paid for via national insurance across Britain.
Issues of benefit fraud and welfare dependancy are important to tackle, none hate benefit fraud more than those forced into a position of genuine reliance upon the benefits system. The increasing scrounger rhetoric is terrifying to those of us knowing that no matter how much we wish to work, how much we try, not only is the system stacked against us, but that the health issues we face are inescapable. Whilst some small steps have been made by Labour MP's such as Liam Byrne to separate out the sick and/or disabled from the unemployed, it's such a quiet statement against the torrent of abuse heaped upon sick and/or disabled people by the wider media and political climate it leaves room for the one message Labour sent to the electorate via Ed Miliband yesterday.
Incapacity benefit claimants are irresponsible scroungers. Even when they're actually decent, honest, have worked, become genuinely incapacitated and are now trying to bring up their families as best they can, they're still scroungers who should just try harder.
The detail of the rest of the speech didn't matter. The message was hammered home in the first paragraph. The Labour party, the party of the people, the party of social justice, led by Ed Miliband are more than happy to be seen as the party demonising disabled people.
As the 'reformed' Work Capability Assessment originally introduced by New Labour continues to deny benefits to genuinely sick and/or disabled people, and the press slowly move away from sensationalist scrounger stories to reporting more and more genuinely ill people being denied benefits, Ed's slam a scrounger policy will undoubtedly return to incapacitate him.
Thursday, 9 June 2011
Really? This Passes For Parliamentary Research? By Sue Marsh
Well, well, well, look what I've found!!
After weeks of asking and several Freedom Of Information requests, I've finally unearthed the "assessment" the DWP did into Time Limiting ESA!! Clearly I use the word assessment in much the way ATOS do. In other words, pick a policy and then write some stuff that proves what you want to say. http://www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/esa-time-limit-wr2011-ia.pdf
Just in case, in the very unlikely event that you are not an uber-geek like me and you can't stay awake long enough to plough through 16 pages of fairy stories, here's a quick summary :
-It overwhelmingly affects the poorest most. The % impact falls from the highest in the 1st decile of earnings to the lowest in the 10th.
-It estimates that 60% will simply switch to income based ESA and not be affected. This is absolutely ridiculous, pie-in the sky rubbish. I have absolutely no idea how they can make this claim.
- The report concludes that over the term of the parliament 90% of those placed into the Work Related Activity Group (WRAG) will be affected.
-ALL groups will lose income on average through this measure.
-It is based on an assumption that 50% of claims will be appealed!!! How are they able to go forward with a system this inaccurate?
-The report itself claims that 700,000 will be affected by the Time Limit - a figure previously hotly debated, ranging from 400,000 to 1 million. It is expected to cut benefits for those not fully fit for work by 1.2 billion per year.
- The report acknowledges, just as I've been warning, that this is a disincentive to work and may push couples into divorce or into giving up on work altogether. However, they admit that they have no idea how significant this will be.
Possibly the most astonishing part is the claim that the Social Impacts did not need to be investigated, neither under the categories of Health and Well-being, Human Rights or the Justice System. (It does go on to say that an equalities assessment was carried out, which I will do my best to unearth)
As far as I can tell, the research is deeply flawed, based on inaccurate assumptions, incomplete and surely, illegal. If you discount the assumption that 60% will simply move to income based ESA, which I believe is just not true, it is a damning look into what passes for parliamentary research in our so called democracy.
After weeks of asking and several Freedom Of Information requests, I've finally unearthed the "assessment" the DWP did into Time Limiting ESA!! Clearly I use the word assessment in much the way ATOS do. In other words, pick a policy and then write some stuff that proves what you want to say. http://www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/esa-time-limit-wr2011-ia.pdf
Just in case, in the very unlikely event that you are not an uber-geek like me and you can't stay awake long enough to plough through 16 pages of fairy stories, here's a quick summary :
-It overwhelmingly affects the poorest most. The % impact falls from the highest in the 1st decile of earnings to the lowest in the 10th.
-It estimates that 60% will simply switch to income based ESA and not be affected. This is absolutely ridiculous, pie-in the sky rubbish. I have absolutely no idea how they can make this claim.
- The report concludes that over the term of the parliament 90% of those placed into the Work Related Activity Group (WRAG) will be affected.
-ALL groups will lose income on average through this measure.
-It is based on an assumption that 50% of claims will be appealed!!! How are they able to go forward with a system this inaccurate?
-The report itself claims that 700,000 will be affected by the Time Limit - a figure previously hotly debated, ranging from 400,000 to 1 million. It is expected to cut benefits for those not fully fit for work by 1.2 billion per year.
- The report acknowledges, just as I've been warning, that this is a disincentive to work and may push couples into divorce or into giving up on work altogether. However, they admit that they have no idea how significant this will be.
Possibly the most astonishing part is the claim that the Social Impacts did not need to be investigated, neither under the categories of Health and Well-being, Human Rights or the Justice System. (It does go on to say that an equalities assessment was carried out, which I will do my best to unearth)
As far as I can tell, the research is deeply flawed, based on inaccurate assumptions, incomplete and surely, illegal. If you discount the assumption that 60% will simply move to income based ESA, which I believe is just not true, it is a damning look into what passes for parliamentary research in our so called democracy.
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