TV Presenter Sophie Morgan In ‘Rage At The Injustice’ Of Blue Badge Theft

So sorry to hear of all that has happened to you and breaking into any vehicle is bad enough, but to then steal a Blue Badge is so very despicable and do hope you get your replacement very soon.

A digitable Blue Badge would be so convenient for some, but only if they are in the vehicle which the badge would be registered to. In this day of digital why couldn’t a facility to digitally transfer the badge to any vehicle the person is in be available, but then this would require investment funding which is not readily available especially from Government At times I honestly believe that the government wishes that all disabled persons would disappear and in much of the context of government this is what they tend to assume has occurred or so wish it as, because disabled persons are not any priority of this government.

Same Difference

TV presenter Sophie Morgan was left “in a rage” at the “injustice” of her Blue Badge being stolen from her car.

The Loose Women star, who uses a wheelchair, said she would have to wait weeks for her car to be fixed and a replacement Blue Badge issued.

“I literally can’t describe how disabling this is,” she said, adding the inconvenience was “beyond measure”.

Blue Badges are issued by your local council and are displayed on the car’s dashboard.

They are proof you are disabled and enable you to get free or longer term parking as well as entitling you to use disabled parking bays which tend to be closer to destinations.

Sophie was away working in America when her car back in London was broken into, earlier this month. The perpetrators “smashed the window on the passenger side,” she told the BBC’s disability podcast, Access All.

“I had…

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City Hall Raking In Millions Thanks to ULEZ Expansion – Guido Fawkes

While Sadiq continues spewing hot air with a moral case over the ULEZ expansion – apparently this is all about saving Londoners’ lives – the TaxPayers’

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Clean air zones have been around for some time.

London may have been believed to be the first UK city to raise a congestion charge, but this was, in fact Durham in 2002,  apparently for only one road, while London was for a specific district.

The whole idea was to reduce pollution, but was it for it could lead to more traffic to use roads where there are no charges and so increase pollution in those areas. But what can’t be argued is that it is a means to raise money at the expense for motorists.

Now many more cities have or are about to introduce similar schemes.

But, if it was really a means to reduce emissions then this should have been run in conjunction with other schemes, such as, providing money to encourage people to purchase less polluting vehicle or state when the most polluting vehicle would no longer be manufactured, which has already been put forward being 2030.

But people will still be able to drive diesel and petrol vehicles, if they can obtain the fuels to do so and currently there is no decision on when these fuels will stop being sold. But sooner or later there will be.

So until then the Local Authorities operating Clean air zones will continue to draw in the money from the charges.

 

Source: City Hall Raking In Millions Thanks to ULEZ Expansion – Guido Fawkes

Schengen: Romania blasts Austria for ‘inexplicable’ move to block access to EU’s passport-free zone | Euronews

In a high-stakes meeting of interior ministers, Austria was the only country that opposed Romania’s accession into Schengen.

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The reasoning behind Austria’s decision is greater than the blocking of Rommania’s accession into Schengen, as it shows and brings to a head the problems with Schengen. If there was no Schengen then the current illegal immigration into France and then into the UK would have been mitigated, as currently once into the EU area, Schengen allows free travel through to France until they come to the North coast of France and the last travel of illegal entry in boats that are very unsafe for the journey across the English Channel. Also it encourages the criminal gangs to enter into these ventures.

Source: Schengen: Romania blasts Austria for ‘inexplicable’ move to block access to EU’s passport-free zone | Euronews

Woman ‘sandwiched between two obese people’ on American Airlines flight is rebuffed by airline | Daily Mail Online

An Australian-American conservative political commentator found herself ‘sandwiched’ between two supremely overweight passengers on a recent American Airlines flight.

 

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What is exactly an Australian American, surely you are either Australian or American, as this women studied her DNA and she is only a percentage American and Australian, when people can be a varied mixture of ethnicities. Then she had the audacity to label 2 persons obese, could it be that she is so thin. If she is that particular then she should have paid the premium so she could select the size seat that works best for her.

Good on American Airlines to rebuke her and so publicly, for you pay for what you get. She paid the standard fare and therefore should not expect special privledges, so what if she is a conservative political commentator, as she should not and doesn’t deserve special treatment.

She is guilty of abusing her fellow passengers and not respecting their Human Rights, she is extremely lucky not to being served a litigation order.

 

Source: Woman ‘sandwiched between two obese people’ on American Airlines flight is rebuffed by airline | Daily Mail Online

‘My Daughter In Wheelchair Was Abandoned By School Taxis’

This all shows how pathetic the system is, with no one accepting accountability and leaving a very vulnerable person in, possible, great danger. All parties need to sort this out so it never happens again, ‘heads need to roll’.

Same Difference

A mother has told the BBC her daughter has been left “abandoned” outside her high school in South Lanarkshire because of transport failures.

The 11-year-old uses a wheelchair and is entitled to a taxi pick-up after each school day.

But her mother Lisa Harland said she has only been picked up twice this term and staff have not waited with her.

South Lanarkshire Council said pupils could wait inside the school if transport was unavailable.

However, Ms Harland said she had to leave work to pick up her daughter and found the school office shutters down.

Because the family live in Glasgow, the girl’s transport is organised by Glasgow City Council and Strathclyde Partnership for Transport (SPT), and provided by Glasgow Taxis.

Ms Harland said she had called the taxi company and SPT but had been unable to find out who is in charge.

She said: “It doesn’t matter who…

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How flying could be improved for passengers who use wheelchairs – The Washington Post

The Transportation Department has announced several measures, but advocates say progress is too slow.

 

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This is disgraceful and very discrimitary for a wheelchair is an intergrel part of a person, as it is realy the equivalent of the legs of a non-wheelcair user and no one would expect a person to become adrift of their legs.

But profit is deemed more important than the human rights of persons who use wheelchairs.

In planes there should be either specific places where people in wheelchairs could continue to sit in their wheelchairs as there are in all other forms of transport, or seats should be able to be removed in order that a wheelchair could be placed instead. Much of this would require isles on planes to be much wider, thereby reducing the seating capacity, hence a loss of revenue and profits.

Also the rights to damages and compensation should be more available and should be paid in days of a claim being made, if not immediately.

Un til then persons in wheelchairs are not being granted the same rights as other passengers which should be illegal.

The airlines are effectively guilty of a lack of Duty of Care.

Source: How flying could be improved for passengers who use wheelchairs – The Washington Post

Sewage now pollutes every single beach between Brighton and Hastings

Heading to the south coast for a summer break? You might struggle to find somewhere clean to swim

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Unfortunately, it is not just every single beach between Brighton and Hastings, but many more beaches around the UK and even many rivers and the longer it goes the pollution just gets worse.

But it is not just a question of lack of investments, which is certainly a major cause, but the inefficiencies of the current private companies and before them the nationalised water authorities. So, will nationalisation be the answer, I fear not, as in those instances it is down to Governments to direct the investments, and over the last 100 or more years Government have been, as much as lacking in doing so as the private companies and could have been more so.

This is due to monies not being ‘ring fenced’, and used by these Governments for whatever areas they so wish. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised that the private companies have invested more in per years than previous Governments. The public are either looking through ‘rose tinted’ glasses or are so young that they have never experienced nationalised industries in the UK.

Just look at Railways, the UK invented railways or steam locomotives, but due to insufficient investments other countries railways expanded way above the UK and, in fact in the 60s, UK railways contracted under Beeching.

Source: Sewage now pollutes every single beach between Brighton and Hastings

‘I have to plan for if I am stranded, if I am dropped, if my chair is damaged’: the perils of travelling while disabled | Disability | The Guardian

Using trains or planes can be fraught with difficulty and danger for disabled people, from being forgotten about at stations to being unable to use the toilet on long flights

 

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This all shows how ineffective and totally unsuitable the current equality legislation is and that it urgently needs to be made more effective, for nobody should have to undergo the indignities that disable people have to contend with when flying.

They like all passengers are paying for a full service and not the diminished service they are currently receiving for they are undergoing indignities no one should have to and then being blamed for inconveniencing others, when it is the service being given which is at fault.

The airline industry should be ashamed for the service being given to disabled people. They have rights which are being ignored.

They are being told to wait for assistance, which should be there ready and waiting for them and in sufficient numbers so no one is left waiting. in doing so all passengers will be able to leave the planes at similar times.

But, I see this everywhere; like persons in wheelchairs being refused travel on buses because the driver says there is no room, but there is for passengers not in wheelchairs. Then being asked to wait for the next, but who says the next will be any different or the next and so on.

Transport should be made so that all passengers are to be treated equally. But it is the same with taxis, why should persons in wheelchairs have to order special taxis that accommodate wheelchairs, when legislation should be stating that all taxis should be made to accommodate all passengers, if not they can’t be used as  taxis.

Equality should mean equality.

Source: ‘I have to plan for if I am stranded, if I am dropped, if my chair is damaged’: the perils of travelling while disabled | Disability | The Guardian

Morning Call: Can’t We Strike a Deal? | The New Statesman

To strike or not to strike, well that is the question. But, is it easy to answer for it all depends on who you believe, for it could be that each party is exaggerating the areas in question.

It is true that inflation has begun to rise, now 9.1% from the similar period last year, so say, a 3% salary increase would be, in real terms’ a wage cut. It is also said that due to COVID and persons working from home there has been a reduction in rail travel of say, 20% and by striking this reduction could well increase and be hard to recover, especially in the short term.

The government could do more for all UK workers by bringing in tax cuts to Income tax, thereby increasing net pay, by reducing the rate of VAT, which would reduce, to some extent, the costs of goods and services, but would mean there would be less revenue for the Government, thereby to recover this shortfall some Government spending could have to reduced, which could lead to some services being reduced, especially those funding by Local Authorities, as, to a large extent the Government funds Local Authorities. But there are other services and organisations which are funded by the Government, including the Police, the armed services, the NHS, etc., so funding could have to be cut to these organisations and services.

With the railways some alterations to working conditions could be a solution to save on costs and release more money for salaries, as there are some restrictive practices. Some of these are relating to work processes before modernisations or automations were made, such as ticket machines instead of ticket booking offices. But the Unions appear to be against alterations affecting the reductions in the workforce due to these modernisations and automations, so staff are effectively having less to do. There are also possible future automations, such as driverless trains, automated track inspections, automated signaling and others.

But there is something which has not been mentioned to any large degree and that is the large pay gap from the lowest paid workers to that of the highest paid workers, of which the highest would be the Chief Executives, so the highest paid could have there salaries restricted to a certain percentage increase above that of the lowest paid.

Much needs to be looked at and nothing should be off the table, including compulsory arbitration on all parties, with strikes being not required.

Source: Morning Call: Can’t We Strike a Deal? – The New Statesman

Disabled passenger stranded on Manchester Airport plane for hours calls POLICE to be rescued – Manchester Evening News

‘I felt like I was being held hostage so I had no other option but to call the police’

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This is a disgraceful state of affairs and it is not an isolated incident for another disabled passenger was left on a plane at Gatwick.

As is stated the airport authorities would have been well aware that assistance was required as the planes captain would have radioed ahead that assistance was required. Even 10 – 15 minutes would be too long to wait for the required assistance should have been there as the plane landed so that the disabled passenger would be the first off the plane rather than the last.

Yet again disability discrimination which should not be countenanced. Equality should be there aways.

Source: Disabled passenger stranded on Manchester Airport plane for hours calls POLICE to be rescued – Manchester Evening News