Another Awful Week in Disability News

It’s been another week of hideous governmental decisions that you may not have been aware of. Here are a handful of stories that I came across: 

Leicester woman Sandra Cutland, who has 25 different disabilities leaving her wheelchair bound and unable to work, lost her PIP after an assessment in November. She now has no money for food or bills. 

"I couldn't understand his questions and he could understand my answers,” she told The BBC. 

The DWP upheld the decision to stop her benefits. 

This issue should have been brought to the government’s Minister for Disabled People, but there’s one problem: the post hasn’t been filled.  

James Taylor, director of strategy at disability equality charity Scope, said:  “This is an appalling and retrograde move by the government. What kind of message does this give to Britain’s 16 million disabled people? That – in the middle of a cost of living crisis – we are now less important?” 

This, of course, comes at a time when the DWP are to stop sending the £300 Cost of Living payments to vulnerable households, including those on disability benefits. Does this mean that general expenses like food and petrol will be cheaper? Of course it fucking doesn’t. It’s the opposite. A decision notice by information commissioner John Edwards, instructing DWP to release the report describing ‘the impact of its errors on “vulnerable” benefit claimants... suggests that the document contains estimates of how many benefit claimants have been harmed by the department’s errors.’ So says Disability News Service. 

I’m not going to spam you with more links to these articles – these sites deliver a continuous documentation of malpractice, injustice and general contempt for the disabled and sick. You can browse them yourself if you’re interested. 

What I will say, though, is that it is increasingly difficult to look people in the eye and be amicable with them, knowing that they have chosen to vote for all this. They made their choices, and I’ve made mine. I avoid Tory voters. 

I will, however, draw your eye to one more Disability News Service article: leading disabled activist Bob Williams-Findlay ‘has issued a call in a new book for the disabled people’s movement to rediscover its appetite for fighting oppression and transforming society.’ ‘Campaigning against austerity, he writes, is “little more than a form of firefighting” when what is needed is “collective political leadership” that will propel disabled people forward in their “struggle for social and political emancipation”.’ 

Of course, how easy this will be when the government have introduced a draconian law banning noisy protest remains to be seen.