Labour’s new shadow work and pensions secretary Jonathan Reynolds is showing that incompetents are not solely within the Conservative Party or is he a Tory plant within Labour.
Jonathan Reynolds and the Labour Party need to get their act together, otherwise we will have Tory Governments until infinity and Labour will be finished forever.
Disabled People Against Cuts and our allies in the Reclaiming Our Futures Alliance are campaigning for a National Independent Living Support Service capable of upholding disabled people’s rights to independent living and building on what was so effective about the Independent Living Fund before it was closed in spite of enormous opposition in June 2015.
Please call on your union branches and CLPs to pass motions supporting the campaign. Thanks to Sean McGovern for the wording of a suggested motion as below. If you would like someone to speak at your branch meeting please send details to mail@dpac.uk.net.
For information about our vision of a National Independent Living Support Service, download this document: NILS-summary-doc-2
Source: Motion – National Independent Living Support Service – DPAC
Following on from the Independent Living Strategy Group report into charging for social care we’d like to get more information on charging and how it is affecting people.
Please could people fill in details in the form below.
Could you also email us at mail@dpac.uk.net if you’d be willing to speak to the journalist Frances Ryan about charging and it’s impact on your lives and support.
We are also looking for someone who is willing to be in a video about the negative impact charging has on their ability to access the care and support they need or who has been left in debt by these charges for use in a separate campaign. Again please email us at mail@dpac.uk.net if you are interested.
The ILSG report can be viewed https://www.disabilityrightsuk.org/sites/default/files/pdf/Chargingsurveyreport-18Nov2018.pdf
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“Conference, delegates, friends. I know I speak for the whole Disabled Members Group, and for disabled people up and down the country, when I say we are deeply grateful for the overwhelming support shown by so many branches, members and elected representatives for this resolution.
When the UK signed up to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities in 2009, Labour were in government, and although disabled people were already dying from Blair’s reforms, the full weight of these seemingly disparate deaths wasn’t yet understood.
A year later, when the Coalition took office, we know that they had already received a Coroner’s Report on the Prevention of Future Deaths, which would save lives if implemented. Iain Duncan Smith and Chris Grayling decided to ignore it, and the Tory/LibDem Coalition dedicated their time in government to implementing sweeping, devastating cuts to social security, health and social care – a programme which continues to cut further and deeper with every passing year.
In 2012, Disabled People Against Cuts began the formal process of triggering a UN investigation into violations of the CRPD. This was based not just on the lives lost, but on the multitude of ways the Austerity cuts have made life harder for disabled people. We have been pushing for a cumulative impact study for years, because disabled people are rarely affected by just one cut.
It takes a long time to initiate an investigation, as multiple sources of evidence have to be submitted, verified and researched. In 2014, the UK became the first government to ever be investigated by the CRPD, a shameful mark on our history. No UN investigation is undertaken frivolously – t
Source: My Speech on the UNCRPD Judgement at the SNP Conference-Fiona Robertson – Black Triangle Campaign
I agree with most of this post, however, in my 60 odd years of life on this earth I have found that there are not many politicians in who you can believe in, be they red, blue, green, purple, orange, yellow and others. However, there are some in which there is some form of belief and others practically none. They all promise the earth and unfound riches in their manifestos and only when they assume power can the truths be revealed.
You cast your vote and hope for the best.
Regarding Brexit nothing has come forth as we have not Brexited and will not be doing so until March 2019 or may be not, depending on whether there will be a transition deal or not.
Everything is so up in the air and no one on either side in the UK or Europe can be sure of the final outcome. We can all speculate on what the outcome or outcomes will or can be and who will be in power if and when we do or not do Brexit.
That length of string is getting longer or is it shorter, day by day.
This is another fascinating little video from RT’s Going Underground. Host Afshin Rattansi talks to the former cabinet minister under Blair, Chris Smith, above his decision to oppose the Invasion of Iraq, his work in the Advertising Standards Authority, and Brexit.
Smith was Blair’s Culture Secretary, and the author of a book, Creative Britain. The cover showed him wielding a professional movie/TV camera. He states he opposed the Iraq invasion because it was ‘obviously the wrong the policy’. He also states that during his time with the Advertising Standards Authority, people wrote in asking them if they could possibly act against the misleading political advertising in elections. Smith states that this is sadly impossible. Their constitution limits them to commercial advertising only, and they have no power to prosecute or punishment politicians that lie.
On the subject of Brexit, he and Rattansi clearly hold different views. Smith appears…
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A woman’s experience on a packed London bus serves as a case-in-point for the reality of life for a disabled person in the UK. And the story, in which a bus driver allegedly said “fucking disabled people shouldn’t be allowed on any bus”, is a testament to just how Conservative-led governments have pushed disabled people’s rights backwards.
Paula Peters is a prominent campaigner and member of the Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) Steer Group. She is well known for her activism and fighting for disabled people’s rights. But on 16 August, she was subject to what she calls “abuse” and discrimination on the R3 bus to Orpington in Bromley, Greater London. And she took to Facebook to tell the story.
Peters lives with Fibromyalgia Syndrome (FMS), Postural tachycardia syndrome (PoTS), Rheumatoid arthritis (RA), and mental health issues, including anxiety and depression. She has to walk with a tri-rollator, on her doctor’s advice, due to the discomfort, pain, and balance issues caused by her conditions. But on the morning of 16 August, neither the bus driver for private operator Metrobus nor the passengers in question took any of this into account.
Today’s demo started rather hurriedly and to be honest I didn’t know if I was coming or going. This feeling was amplified because it was cold, rainy and my daughter was a bit fed up. understandable of course. But she soon settled down into our usual routine and all was well.
We are seeing a lot of new faces due to Stalybridge Jobcentre shutting. They don’t know us and what we are doing, and we don’t know them or their situations either. So we have to start from scratch, which at times isn’t easy. But it’s a whole lot harder for them.
I started a conversation with a man who had been previously attending Stalybridge Jobcentre for his appointments. The first thing that he said to me was that he couldn’t believe how rude the front desk staff are at Ashton Jobcentre, and how rude some of the advisors are also…
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Disabled people’s organisations who travelled to Geneva this week to help highlight the government’s continuing human rights violations have praised a UN committee of disabled experts for publicly exposing the UK’s failings.
Civil servants from eight UK government departments, and the devolved governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, were grilled over two days about the UK’s record in implementing the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD).
The two days ended with the chair of the UN committee on the rights of persons with disabilities (CRPD), Theresia Degener, telling the UK government that its cuts to social security and other support for disabled people had caused “a human catastrophe” (see separate story).
Another CRPD member, Stig Langvad, said members were “deeply concerned” by the government’s failure to implement the convention, and delivered a withering putdown, telling the UK delegation: “I could provide a long list of examples where the state party doesn’t live up to the convention. Unfortunately, the time is too limited.”
Among the DPOs that travelled to Geneva were representatives of Inclusion London, the Alliance for Inclusive Education, Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC), Equal Lives, Black Triangle, Disability Rights UK, Inclusion Scotland and Disability Wales.
Labour’s shadow chancellor has called for disabled people themselves to be given the job of designing the solution to the social care funding crisis. John McDonnell was speaking to Disability News Service (DNS) as activists from Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) were protesting about cuts to social care, in parliament’s central lobby yesterday (Wednesday). He said there were two strands to finding a solution to the social care crisis: “One is more money, and two is a system that is designed by disabled people themselves.” Both he and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn supported the actions of the activists who protested in the heart of parliament, within earshot of the main Commons chamber, while there was also support from Green party co-leaders Caroline Lucas MP and Jonathan Bartley. DPAC had arranged the lobby of parliament – as part of its week of action – so activists could raise concerns with their MPs about cuts to independent living support, with campaigners coming from as far as
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