Nothing's really changed....

Years ago, back in the 1970s there was some effort made to try and get an extra benefit for blind people, to take into account that they would never be able to drive and would incur extra expense with taxis, etc., because public transport was erratic, expensive and often didn't take them where they needed to go anyway.  However successive governments never even made a move to do anything about this.  Those who were campaigning were incensed - how could politicians just ignore such a need?

The answer came, not from a politician, but from a television programme which sent a few journalists out to interview people.  It discovered that most people believed that the registered blind already received a special benefit, along, some said, with free televisions.    The government didn't need to do anything because only a 'few' people wanted it; the remainder assumed they already had it.

I see a lot of parallels today.  The disabled don't need help, we are told, because stores, offices etc are already eager to help them.  They have made allowances, installed lifts etc.  Well, some have.  Some still haven't.  Some don't want to and never will.  Some install disabled changing rooms and then put staff in charge who make it impossible for the disabled to actually use them....  and on it goes.

I am currently in the midst of a disability discrimination claim against a large - very large - retail chain.  The level of discrimination and sheer incompetence - which I will describe fully when it is finally settled - is staggering.  A recent survey by the Leonard Cheshire Foundation found that only 2% of people who suffer descrimination ever take it further.

Guess what?  I'm one of that 2%. 

Getting Red Arrows....

I've always believed it is important to challenge sloppy journalism.  So I often comment on posts that really should never have got past their editor.    You know the sort of thing I mean, articles that spew out poor facts or made up facts or which basically judge a person on trial before a verdict comes in.

Lately I've been getting lots of red arrows, just for writing the truth.  But then the truth is a funny old thing, isn't it?  People don't really like the truth - they pay lip service to it, of course, but they don't like it.  Sometimes they even shoot the messenger.

Well, in certain newspapers, those that spew out prodigious amounts of lies and nonsense, I take the red arrow badge as a mark of honour.  I stood up for the truth and the best they could do was to try and mark me down.

Will I give up though?

Don't be silly. 

Living in the Real World

Politicians have to make decisions that affect the lives of others every day.  That's part of their job.  And sometimes such decisions will be unpopular.  But at the very least, those affected by the decisions have the right to expect that those making them will have some idea what they are doing.  Not so with cuts to disability benefits however.

Today in the Daily Mail we read how Mr Cameron is hiring a personal trainer to help him deal with stiff muscles and joints.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1394417/Keep-fit-Dave-calls-250-hour-physio-tummy-trim.html

This trainer is apparently costing our intrepid leader £250 per hour.  PER HOUR.  That's pretty close to the amount paid per month to someone claiming DLA at the highest rate for mobility (and you need more than stiff muscles and joints to qualify for that) and the lowest level of care.  Imagine.... one hour against a whole month.  Better still, take time to do some maths here.  If that trainer worked just 8 hours a day, five days a week for four weeks it would be £10,000!  Staggering stuff, eh?

Yet this government has presided over - and encouraged with all its 'government sources' leaks - the most shameful villification of the sick and disabled in living history.  Even though DLA is given to those who can work (as well as those who cannot) it is to be replaced by a personal independence payment.

Think about it.  Personal Independence Payment.  Well, it all depends what you mean by independence, really, doesn't it?  Because the sort of independence one can buy on £275 per month is quite different from the sort of independence you might expect for £250 per hour.

We're all in it together?  Live in the real world, Dave.

I've been away

Well, not anywhere nice unfortunately.  Just unable to muster any sort of energy to do very much at all.  Meanwhile the level of bile and general hysteria is rumbling on but I seem to have noticed a little sea change.  Perhaps it is to do with the fact that the vile face of disablism is finally becoming apparent.  Look at the awful scenes in the Panorama programme.... then look at the 'care home' providers who ripped everyone off and then left the very people they were supposed to help facing homelessness.  Because this is what happens when you are driven by money.  People no longer matter.

Are people finally beginning to see the human face behind the disablism?  Few of those young people brutalised and tormented at Winterbourne would eveyr be able to work.... are they just scroungers?  Workshy?  Or can people finally see the human face?  I live in hope.

In Ancient Rome the Stoics argued against slavery not because it was wrong per se (in their eyes), but because it was morally harmful to the slave owner.  That's an interesting  take on it.... do you think we could persuade the Con Dem coalition to drop some of their planned cuts on the grounds that it will be morally harmful to them (rather than just physically harmful to us?)  Now there's a thought. 

I'm not going to hold my breath though. I can't.  It hurts too much.

More bile in the Daily Mail

You know I used to think that Bel Mooney was a sensible sort of agony aunt.  I don't expect to agree with everything another person says, but I felt that she tried to be compassionate, to see the other person's point of view.  And then I read this article : http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1379846/Thats-spirit-The-bestseller-believes-warmth-heart-transform-old-age.html

Now admittedly this isn't an agony aunt page, it's about how to grow older without actually falling to pieces, so I couldn't help but wonder how this bit of bile was pushed into the text...After extolling the longevity of people on a Japanese island, Bel writes:


'Contrast that with Britain, where it was revealed this week that 80,000 of us are too fat or too dependent on drugs or alcohol to work.  Think about that. Slovenly zombies who have given up on dignity, but claim benefits in order to buy more disgusting stuff to shorten their useless lives. There’s mostly no excuse for their attitude — although, of course, people will always try to explain it away.'


Well, that's nice to know, isn't it?  Apart from struggling to cope, going blind and feeling my independence slowly slipping away, I am a slovely zombie who has given up on dignity and has a useless life.  

And notice the authorial 'we' : '80,000 of us' although I bet Bel doesn't really include herself in their number.  

Well, don't forget as I am so fond of telling anyone who will listen - everyone is just a step away from disability.  The funny thing is that no matter what they thought of the disabled before, they don't half change their tune afterwards.  

Blaming the disabled....

They have demonised us, trivialised the conditions that cripple us... and now they want to blame us.  We shouldn't really be surprised. 

But that doesn't mean we should just take it.  The powers that be have always liked the idea of dividing people into deserving and undeserving groups.  In Victorian times the deserving poor could have a pat on the head, a bowl of gruel and a quick and uncomfortable stay in the workhouse.  Those considered undeserving on the other hand got nothing apart from a swift kick in the bum (and maybe a stay in the local lock-up for good measure.)

These notions - that the sick, the poor and anyone else who is considered an inconvenience - can be set to one side and ignored for the most scurrilous of reasons, should have been long since discredited.  The fact that they are resurfacing and worse, supported by the people who are supposed to be running this country, is worrying.

Who gets to decide these things?  Anyone who is disabled shudders when you mention ATOS who are clearly not up to the job of even deciding factual matters such as disability.  Can you imagine what would happen if we added a moral dimension to this?  The tick-box mentality would run amok....

Question 1.  How could you have prevented your disability?  (Note that they will not ask 'Could you have prevented it - that will be a foregone conclusion.) 


And no matter how you answer, you will be doomed because the whole thing is so badly skewed.  And nobody is capable of using even a smidgen of common sense.

A while back, I applied for a disabled person's bus pass - I need to be able to take a companion with me when I travel.  I was told I did not qualify any more because the criteria had changed.  Oh, they had changed all right.  It is no longer enough to be partially sighted, or blind, and have mobility problems, you now have to have a visual AND hearing disability as well. 
I pointed out that visual problems are highly disabling when you need to travel, but was told there was nothing anyone could do, because it was 'the guidelines.'
So I asked, 'If the guidelines were changed to allow bus passes only to people with two heads born in Alpha Centaruii, would you go aloong with that too?'
There was a confused silence.  'Well, no....'
'And the guidelines allow for the application of some discretion?'
'Well, yes....'
'Then why can't you apply it in this case?'

I got my pass eventually.  But I can't help wondering how many others just give up.

The horrors of trying to go shopping....

Last Friday my husband suggested taking me out to buy some clothes.  I was looking and feeling a bit better, and if I felt up to it, he was happy to come with me.  My clothes are in a shocking state (being large I am limited in my choice of retailers) and I desperately needed new trousers.  We got a train, and the shop I needed was just a kick in the bum from the station itself.  Great.  What could go wrong?

Well, the shop, (It-that-shall-not-be-named) for a start.  Yes, they allowed me to use the disabled cubicle, but my husband was not allowed to come in to help me because...'We've had complaints about men in the changing rooms.'
Okay, could he at least sit outside (they used to have a settee nearby where people could wait) so I could show him my clothes to check if they were okay?  I explained my vision is very bad and I wouldn't be able to see for myself.
No, that wasn't possible either.  Because.... 'they'd had complaints about men sitting NEAR the changing rooms.'
In fact, they'd even had complaints about men being anywhere near the entrance to the changing rooms.  The best they could offer was that my husband could sit in the shoe department and wait for me there.  Which meant I had to change by myself, and then leave the changing room to show him my clothes - highly embarrassing when most of them didn't fit.  I was made to feel as though I had walked into their shop with some sort of pervert in tow.

I tried to explain that I needed help changing, but the assistant was unmoved.  'I'll help you,' she said.  Only I don't like strangers seeing me undressed.  I doubt she would like it either.
Anyway, while I was struggling to manage by myself (I really did need new clothes or I wouldn't have bothered) some other women came in, soon followed by their adult sons who stood at the door of the changing rooms for ages, chatting away.
I queried this - why could they be present and not my husband when I needed him - and was told that 'they were the customer's children.'
I explained that my companion was my husband of many years and this seemed like one rule for some and a different rule for others.  I was then told that my husband could also stand at the entrance to the changing room now (only of course, with two adult males already there, there wasn't any room.)

Well, I struggled with the clothes.... needed a pair of trousers in a certain size but nobody could possibly look in the store room to see if they had any.  I found three tee shirts I liked and asked them to put them to one side and I would definitely buy them later.... only of course, when I went to get them, someone had removed them and nobody knew where they now were.  (You might think they had been returned to the clothes rails, but no.... heaven knows where they went, outer space, probably.)

So the upshot of all this is that I spent ONE AND A HALF totally useless hours, struggling in that shop, my husband made to feel like a peeping tom, and came away with nothing.

Except of course, the resolve never to go there again.

This story has a happy ending.... eventually I visited another shop  and the difference couldn't have been greater.  Nothing was too much trouble, trousers were found in the stock room, and I came away with exactly what I wanted.

 Now why the hell couldn't the first shop - It-that-shall-not-be-named  -  have been more like that?