The main event for me yesterday was the launch of the spartacusreport / Responsible Reform report on the proposed changes to DLA, funded, written by and supported by the very people the proposed changes affect, and ooh, does it make for enlightening reading.
http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/files/response_to_proposed_dla_reforms.pdf
For example, where 98% of respondents opposed the qualifying period being raised to 6 months from 3, this somehow got translated by the government document as “some organisations were in favour of our proposal to extend the Qualifying Period from 3 months to 6 months before benefit would be paid… However many organisations and some individuals were not in favour of this” Er, excuse me? 98% against gets translated to ‘many’ and ‘some’ and 2% for is translated to ‘some’? Making it look as though the numbers aren’t as damning as they are? Google it if you don’t believe me. Even Boris Johnson objected in his submission: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielknowles/100127807/boris-johnson-turns-his-fire-on-the-governments-reforms-to-disability-living-allowance/ I think I’m starting to like Boris. It’s a strange sensation.
What I find even more damning though, is that the #spartacusreport was trending on twitter yesterday, even at first place for a short while, then hovering in second for the whole afternoon. It received support from various celebrities, including Stephen Fry and Tim Minchin, and even John Prescott noticed. It attracted millions of tweets.
And yet, where is the BBC report on this amazing reponse to the Welfare Reform Bill? Where is the Daily Mail story on this socially-funded and researched report? This must be it: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2084445/Incapacity-benefits-10-000-sick-Britons-abroad-claiming-1m-week.html
Oh, my mistake. Also, notice the ‘MAIL COMMENT: the welfare state has become a bonanza for the feckless’, mere days after being forced to print that, actually, the fraud rate for DLA is less than 0.5%: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2083294/Boris-Johnson-attacks-Tory-plans-benefits-squeeze-disability-living-allowance.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
It’s like they’ve learned nothing.
Where is ANY mainstream news report on the twitterstorm that #spartacusreport inspired? It’s times like this that make me feel paranoid.
And how appropriate then, that the Resistance Exhibition Event: Telling Our Stories opens at M shed in Bristol this weekend, as a nod to Disability History Month. I’ll be performing BSL poetry in Studio 2 on Saturday as part of this event, all are welcome! http://mshed.org/whats-on/events/resistance-exhibition-event-telling-our-stories/ Check out the poster – how cool is that? Posed by none other than Liz Crow, the director of Resistance. Come on down!
Oh, and another thing: according to the pope, gay marriage is a threat to humanity’s future: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/09/us-pope-gay-idUSTRE8081RM20120109
There’s a lot of things I could say in response to this, but a tweet by Patrick Strudwick has summed it up perfectly:
Today the pope said that gay marriage undermines “the future of humanity itself”. I say telling people not to use condoms already has.
Well, quite.
Update:
An hour after I published this, the Daily Mail posted this. They pretty much agree with everything I said, and more. They tear into Cameron and the WRB, defend the disabled and quote the Spartacus Report. Not only do I take back (some) of what I said about them in my previous post, I think I may need a lie-down to get over the shock.
Fan me, someone, fan me.
DeafFirefly 
Well, for what it’s worth, it seems to me the lunatics are running the asylum pretty much everywhere. On top of that, they don’t want to share. I hope you can find ways to navigate the madness.
Tell me about it! Thanks, so do I and best of luck to you too 🙂
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Thanks for the pingback, only one thing, I’m a She 🙂 Love the title of your blog! Perhaps I should get a mask…