Today's protest.

I might not have totally agreed with the protests that were happening this week, but I do agree that there is that right to do so, and I respect the people exercising their right. I was unforunately watching the live stream of the carnival like atmosphere outside the DWP head office on live stream when I seen a line of police without warning, provocation or reason storm into the protest from seemingly nowhere causing complete chaos.

What I can't understand is how this happened? It was only afterwards the Met police attempted to find out what was going on via twitter. Surely that should have been the first course of action. Just one look at the hash tag #DPAC or #ukuncut etc. would have led them straight to the heart of the people involved.

What scared me the most was their attitudes towards the protestors. They treated the vertical people as terrorists, despite the fact that the majority of them were probably disabled themselves. I know that if I were to attend an event like that (I don't think it will be possible though) the sudden change in atmosphere, the chaos, and the shoving and screaming and shouting would have probably caused me to collapse and have a seizure. I hope there was no one there today in that position, I was traumatised just watching it unfold. As for those in the wheelchairs it must have been terryfying to be in that confusion. The police came between the line of wheelchairs and the 'rest' of the protestors, literally blocking and barricading them in. To have no way to escape and to be shoved around must have been nasty.

Now I am not saying that these people were innocent disabled people, far from it. Nor am I saying they are above the law, or should be treated differently to other people protesting, if they are breaking the law. However, that being said, I do think that there does need to be some consideration of the people involved in the protest before storming in heavy handed, and if that is the best tactic. Disabled people do have additional needs, and there are important things to be considered. There appeared no order to what the police were doing, and their shouting for the whole group to move back was lost by the second row. It caused too much chaos to be effective.

What shocked me was the difference in the polices attitudes compared with the previous protest that occurred on Oxford street. The police there talked directly to the protesters through loud hailers, and requested people to leave. At that point it gave people who needed to get out for any reason (through impairment or other reason) the opportunity to do so. Those who wished to stay were doing so under the full knowledge that the police had asked them to move.

There were 2 protests today, one outside ATOS and outside the DWP. Apart from the internal part of the DWP protest I can see no difference. There were people standing outside. The only limitation was the space. Outside the DWP there was litterally no space, but there was a square at ATOS. Even if the intention wasn't to block the entrance, but to protest the entrance would have still been blocked.

I just hope that the police are held accountable for their actions today. It was completely inexcusable, and completely avoidable. They gave no warning, no reason and caused a serious ammount of damage. Regardless of any act of defiance, there will be disabled people who will not be able to protest after the events of today, and I am not just talking about the physically disabled people who were injured, but those with mental health problems.

Shame on the police, really shame.

watch it here: http://bambuser.com/v/2946786

today I hate the DWP

I hate the DWP today, or the government, both really. Let me explain...

I have finally been processed for my ESA benefits after claiming ESA since september 2011. I am hopeful for a positive result, but as nothing has come on paper, I am still waiting. So, instead of that nice little portrait the government made of a claimaints journey on ESA where you are nicely assessed by week 13 and all is wonderful I am nearly at week 52 of my claim and waiting, waiting waiting. None of this is my fault.

Now, lets add another complex matter to the equation. My gas and electric bills. Prior to being with my current supplier I was on a benefit tariff, and I always have been on a benefit tarriff, quite happily paying 20 pounds a month to cover my gas and electric. Last summer I stopped claiming benefits (I reclaimed in September) and so switched to my current supplier, who was happy to set up the direct debits at the same amount. Now, remember, I am claiming ESA, so in olden day language I should be not very well (in modern day language I should be dying). I struggle with finances (and detailed this on my form) so I dont really know what month it is, but I am happy that all my direct debits are doing as they should.

Now, a robot should have somewhere picked up I was paying way too little for my energy, but they didn't. Perhaps I should have, but I didn't. Perhaps they should have billed me more than every six months, but they didn't. So here I am, a year down the line with 300 pounds to pay them and no real clue how. They only apply the direct debit discount yearly, which will hopefully take 120 pounds off it.

So, how does me hating the government come into all this?

Well, there is such a scheme called the warm home discount. Basically those people on eligible benefits are entitled to 130 pounds off their energy bills every year. The supplier I was with stipulated that you had to be in the ESA support or work related groups, fair enough.

So I rang them today confident in the knowledge I qualify now, and have done all year, but because of some sort of government error have only just retrospectively become eligible. (I don't have my decision on paper so I am not saying anything here) O no, the scheme closed in February, and you can't apply now, sorry.

So, thanks to the governments failings with my benefits, I am now less 130 pounds. Theres no way I can go back to february and re claim it. I wasn't entitled then. But I am now entitled, and I have been since December. Now I hope you can see why I hate the government so much. None of this is my fault, I just hope I get a bit of money with my ESA award that can be used to pay off the debt (not that I actually needed it for anything, you know.. important)

The week of welfare and disablity stories.

These links don't directly relate to the paralympics, but I am pretty sure thats the reason behind this sudden explosion in the media of all things disability...

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/mark-steel/mark-steel-they-cant-be-disabled--they-can-swim-8084638.html
There's a company called Atos, that you may have heard of, and the achievement it's best known for is to be despised by thousands of the disabled. 

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/28/paralympics-world-of-possibility
A great backwash of enthusiasm from the Olympics will carry the Paralympics triumphantly through the opening ceremony on Wednesday night. It's the same stadium and the same format,

http://www.thestar.co.uk/news/sheffield-s-disabled-join-paralympic-protest-1-4873379#.UD205fzur58.twitter
DISABLED people in Sheffield put on a united front against the government’s chosen Paralympics sponsor.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/aug/28/atos-3bn-government-contracts-paralympics?CMP=twt_gu
Ministers have outsourced more than £3bn of public services to Atos, the multinational IT firm whose sponsorship of the Paralympics has prompted a nationwide campaign by disability activists.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/aug/28/hope-paralympics-games-normalise-disability?CMP=twt_gu
I've been waiting seven long years for the Paralympics. I'm a wheelchair sports fan (it's the same as being an armchair sports fan except I'm more portable).

 http://www.redpepper.org.uk/mythbuster-welfare-reform/
Welfare reform is almost inevitably contentious. Answering the question of who should receive how much financial support relies on often competing conceptions of fairness, with rival views about who needs, and who deserves, our help, not to mention the most just and efficient way of providing it.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/aug/26/tanni-grey-thompson-paralympic-star?CMP=twt_gu
Lady Grey-Thompson may be Britain's greatest Paralympian, a TV personality and a dame of the British empire, but if like her you use a wheelchair, fame and stellar achievement can count for little when confronted with the vagaries of the public transport system.

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19365786
 Frequent air travel is part of a BBC security correspondent's job - but flying with a wheelchair is sometimes more difficult than it needs to be.

 http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/olympics/paralympics/time-to-embrace-a-new-team-of-heroes-and-rethink-our-attitudes-to-disability-8079299.html
 After a brief dose of reality, it all starts again on Wednesday night. The torch, the ceremony, the fans, the winners and losers and the overnight Team GB heroes.

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/23/paralympians-state-help-disabled-benefits-cut?CMP=twt_gu
 The flames are lit, the torches are on the move. Next week an extraordinary spectacle unfolds, revealing super-fit, finely muscled Paralympians doing things few able-bodied people could ever achieve. But will it change public attitudes – and if so, for better or worse?

 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/paralympic-sponsor-engulfed-by-disability-tests-row-8084799.
 Paralympic sponsor engulfed by disability tests row - Home News - UK - The Independent

 http://blacktrianglecampaign.org/2012/08/28/seven-medals-but-now-the-tories-want-my-benefits-british-paralympic-gold-medalist-tara-flood-speaks-out/

Paralympic winner speaks out and says get Atos out of the Games
Paralympic gold medallist and world record holder Tara Flood faces a test that could see her lose her disability benefits, she told Socialist Worker.

The paralympics (an alternative headline story)

The BBC posted an article about the upcoming paralympics. In it, there is a lot of references to how far we have come as a society since those times and how enlightened our attitude towards disabled people are. I want to re write the article using London 2012, because its been bugging me how mis representative it is of disabled peoples day to day life in 2012.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19366834

The 2012 Paralympic games in London is set against a backdrop of great change for disabled people across the UK. Thanks to the current government the Welfare Reform Act is threatening the income of tens of thousands of disabled people, and combined with the other cuts being implemented  is causing a serious deterioration in their quality of life.

Despite London having one of the best transport systems in the world, over half of it is still inaccessible to those people who use a wheelchair. The tube is partly step free, but even then wheelchair users are unable to alight the train without assistance. London buses, and taxis have ramps (when they work) but are limited to one wheelchair user, and on a bus, if a pushchair is using that space then the person has to wait for the next bus (despite this being illegal).

Despite the paralymic park being completely wheelchair accessible, the hotels around london are far from ideal. Access through the kitchen on a pallet lift is not a 21st century definition of access, but it happened (http://benefitscroungingscum.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/two-girls-one-wheelchair-21st-century.html). Disabled people do unfortunately have to take it for granted these days, having to book train assistance 24 hours in advance, but it not turning up and being forced to throw themselves off the train to get off. Its not dignified but they get on with it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EYTcFjkLWA.

Despite the modern paralympics being borne out of a doctors assertion that sport was therapy, disabled people live in fear of going to the gym, or any sort of activity. Thanks to the DWP and the daily mail, the seemingly consistent stories of disabled people playing sport (of all things!) and defrauding the government of benefits has been etched into the public conciousness resulting in disabled people not able to enjoy sport. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2114356/Waterslide-disability-benefits-cheat-caught-camera-luxury-south-France-holiday-forced-sell-house-pay-thousands.html Despite the fact that it is benefits such as DLA that are actually enabling some of the GB athletes to take part.

Thanks to the hours and hours of TV coverage, and channel4s superhuman style adverts,  peoples attitudes are going to become even more hardened to disabled people on benefits. Crys of "well they can do it, why can't you" will be heard across the country, and the scrounger rhetoric will become entrenched. In the last 3 years attitudes towards disabled people have become a whole lot worse, with hate crime on the rise and discrimination becoming commonplace. This is despite the laws designed to protect disabled people.http://www.scope.org.uk/campaigns/disability-discrimination/disability-hate-crime

Thousands of disabled people would be grateful for any job, as would any able bodied person. However, the jobcentre still attempt to put disabled people who are highly qualified into meaningless training schemes or inapropiate low paid work.

Despite the great sporting event going on, thousands of disabled people are at risk, from cuts and a poor quality of life. Thanks to the implementation of ESA disabled people are committing sucide as they can not cope with the barriers being placed in their way. Behind the games, people are organising protests, doing whatever they can to highlight the plight of disabled people, who after 50 years are still on the margins of society and still struggling to have equality. http://www.dpac.uk.net/2012/08/latest-information-on-atos-games-week/

you cant be specific without being general.

this post is about the news today concerning right to die, right to live. the story is here.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-19249680
A man paralysed from the neck down has lost his High Court case to allow doctors to end his life without fear of prosecution.

so a bit of a take care with this blog post because of content warning.

I stumbled into an argument about the news that a paralyzed man isn't allowed to die earlier. I seemed to be in the minority, of one, to think that it was the correct decision. I think, if it gets flipped on its head a bit, the story becomes different.

If within the UK and this society that we live in there is an assumption that paralysis reduces the persons life to such an extent that there is no longer any quality of life, then that is a dangerous and often untrue assumption. One only needs to look at the paralymics to see the counter argument. The quality of a persons life is surely determined by the care they receive and the enabling aspects of that care to be holistic and look after emotional, spiritual as well as physical needs. Again, its social model ideology that I am thinking of, that if a person doesn't have any quality of life, should we be looking at the persons impairment or the ability of the person to engage within society at whatever level they are able to?

I also want to make the point that if we allow this person, or any of the other people who wish to have the right to die, then it sets a dangerous precedent  within law to say that when someone becomes disabled, their quality of life reduces and its ok to think about death for this person (just imagine what the DWP would do with that...) 

Although, the people I was having this debate with couldn't see the link. They seemed to think that this one case should be dealt with in isolation and it wouldnt have any impact on any future law or policy. However, I don't think its possible to be specifc without thinking more generally. Nothing happens in isolation, everything has a consequence, every action an equal and opposite reaction.

In this case, you cant be specific without being general. The general right to life debate applies here, it cant be got away from. The actions from this event has an impact on many thousands of others. It has to be considered in general, as well as being specific.

..but I can't (or the after effects of the ESA50)

"I'm sorry I can't do that, I'm disabled."

Its a phrase I say all the time and I suspect many disabled people say it. It is an empowering and liberating experience to be able to state your limitations and be able to confidently assert the reasons why. It usually gets the desired effect, either by sheer shock value or being to scared to counteract it.

However, in my life the word cant has been equally disabling. Its as easy to say I can't as I can, and in all honesty its only been in this last 10 months that I have been saying, well maybe I can actually, despite my impairment being disabling. Being able to recognise my limitations has actually been liberating. The daily constant of you can't do this because of your impairment and the way society works slowly got to me and I started to believe it for myself. Its a big cycle, once you get into it, its easy to get other people to do it for you, or just not do it at all. The excuses become easier, and more believable, even realistic. I do it out of protection sometimes, so I wont get hurt.

In the last ten months things changed. I started to take a very slow step out of my comfort zone. I went to a hardest hit protest in Leeds. By myself. On a train. On a saturday. I felt like the character that Jim Carey played in Yes man. He goes to a motivational speaker who encourages everyone to change their lives by saying YES to everything, no matter the consequences. I was saying YES I can for the first time. I survived by taking photos and becoming a bit separate from it all. As a result of that I made a friend who introduced me to student activism, and I learnt the power of I can. I went on to do amazing things, and I am still doing things that I am scared of daily just to make sure I can still say yes, despite everyone and everything saying no. (I always was a bit of a rebel)

However, over the last 3 months since stopping university for the summer that I can't attitude has slipped back into my life, and now it feels like its here to stay again. What has made it become a permanent resident in my vocabulary has been the dreaded ESA50. Although the governments promise to change the system to look at what a person can do, it is inherinately going to be focuing on what a person can't do.

Having to write I can't do this because of this is really hard, because I have started to believe it. Now I am not saying I am lying on my form, because I genuinely can't do all the things I say I can't. However, because I am only writing about what I can't do, it puts it all into sharp focus that I can't. Even the things I can do aren't up to a normal persons standards. Normal people can catch a bus all the way into town without having to get off, but I can't. However, I have to remember that the fact that I am even willing to try is an achievement in itself.

But its hard. That constant nagging of I can't comes back, and then I start to not do things, because I can't and I can't actually tell anymore what I genuinely can't do, and what I am just saying I can't do because I am convincing myself that its beyond my capabilities. It is a really hard balancing act and its one that I was just about managing until my ESA50. To be able to come out of an I can't situation having worked out a way that I can is a real achievement for me, and one that I'm strugglnig with at the moment.

Of course, I can does come with  sacrifices. I went to a training day the other week in manchester. I went with people who know me, so the train wasn't so traumatic (and we had booked seats) but despite saying that I can get to the event, I only lasted until 3pm, and had to get a train home. I spent the next 5 days completely wiped out. But there I am again, using that as a reason not to try it again. As a disabled person things do cost. But, despite only being able to attend 2 thirds of the day I still say it was worth it. I just have to re find the attitude of can do, even in little things and slowly start to build back up to saying I can do, or how can I do to a lot more things.

friends plus

I don't have many friends. Thats not a cue to feel sorry for me though, I like it like this. The few good friends I have I know whats what with them, and I'm not forever second guessing if they still like me, I know they do, on the whole. However, recently I have noticed something about these friendships thats a bit weird and wanted to share and see if its a common thing?

I call it friends plus because as a disabled person, people never seem to be 'just' friends. Even its a stupid little thing like buying the drinks, there always seems to be that unwritten rule that being my friend involves a little bit extra. I don't expect it, or even demand it, it just seems to happen like that.

As time goes on and friendships develop and we get to know each other more, then so do the extra things that happen. I know that this happens in most friendships, but it seems different somehow as a disabled person. There are unwritten rules involved as people get to know me, and more importantly my limitations. I don't say that this is disabling, of course not, its enabling, but its just weird that there is some sort of care (in the professional sense) involved in all of my really good friendships. It places an extra expectation and an extra dimension onto the friendship.

Its similar to a loved one, like a family member or partner being expected to care for someone if they can no longer do it themselves, but in a less intense, obvious way. I hope its not, and I don't think it is a negative thing. If you like me you have to look after me a bit sometimes too is to me, like saying I accept all of you all of the time, regardless of what that means. I guess its just the way its done. If a friend expected me to be grateful for whatever it is they do for me then I think it would get tiresome, but with my friends helping me recover from a fit is just the same as sitting and chatting over a coffee. Its just a part of everyday life.

In some ways I am grateful that I am open about being disabled, because at least I know I have good friends and ones I can rely on. They also know they can rely on me, because of that openness. If they need me, they know I will help them out too, it goes both ways, just in a slightly different way sometimes.

It does affect the balance of control in a friendship though. Sometimes my friends are very much in control and being a care giver as oppose to a friend, and at times it is hard to think of yourself as any more than just a burden. But thats when my friends turn around and remind me that its just part of life, and the balance restores itself.

the boundaries are blurred with any friendship, but I really think that with a disabled person it can be more extreme and sometimes difficult to manage, but perhaps thats just me....