Tag Archives: wheelchair

Thuggish attack on wheelchair user shows anti-disability prejudice is alive and thriving

It says everything about the UK under Conservative rule that people feel empowered to physically abuse the most vulnerable in society.

It’s bad enough that racism is running rampant but disablism is at a high – all thanks to attitudes carefully nurtured by the Tories and their lackey media.

Thugs are following the example of the Tories, whose attitude is that they can do whatever they want to whoever they want.

The Tories have spent years denying the existence of disabled people’s impairments, starving them of benefits until many of them have died – just as they have denied black and minority ethnic people’s right even to live in the UK.

Is it any wonder, then, that incidents like this happen?

Police are hunting a violent thug who attacked a disabled wheelchair user by smacking him in the face.

An investigation into the alleged incident has been launched after a man reported being verbally abused on Florence Place, Perth, on Wednesday June 17.

The victim, who was using an electric wheelchair, was verbally abused with a disgusting comment about his disability before being approached by two males.

He was then left with a facial injury after being whacked by one of the men.

Source: Disabled man in wheelchair smacked in the face by violent thug on Scots street as cops launch probe – Daily Record

Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.

https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/mike-sivier-libel-fight/


Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(
but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.

1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.

2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical

3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com

And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!

If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.


The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

If only the British treated disabled people with the respect of this Paris bus driver

It has long been a stereotype that the British consider themselves polite and considerate, in contrast to the French – who are characterised as the opposite.

But a Parisian bus driver has put both his own people and many Brits to shame with his response to passengers’ indifference when a wheelchair user tried to board his bus.

Scandalised by their attitude, he cleared the vehicle. Rather than allowing one disabled person to be left behind while the able-bodied rode in comfort, he made sure the wheelchair-user had the entire bus to himself.

If only British service-providers displayed the same sentiment!

It seems to This Writer that attitudes towards those with long-term illnesses and disabilities might buck up sharpish if the general public knew they would be penalised for any lack of consideration.

Even though that would be an improvement, the situation is still a source of sadness.

Care for those who are less able to manage should be a part of our nature.

Perhaps we have been brainwashed by the example of our leaders, who seem to believe that they are somehow better than the rest of us because they have the privileges of wealth and inheritance.

But a society that believes such simple courtesy undesirable – like the selfish creed of the Conservatives – is utterly worthless.

A French driver has been praised for kicking every single passenger off his bus after they failed to make room for a man in a wheelchair.

Francois Le Berre, who has multiple sclerosis, was waiting to get on a bus in a Paris suburb, but none of the passengers would move to allow him space.

The bus driver, who has not been named, noticed the problem and took the unprecedented step of asking every single passenger to leave the bus.

He then allowed Mr Le Berre to come on board and drove off with him as the sole passenger.

A tweet describing the incident was shared by a group called “Accessible Pour Tous” – which translates as ‘accessible for all’ on behalf of Mr Le Berre.

It has been shared more than 5,000 times and ‘liked’ by more than 10,000 people, with many congratulating the bus driver and criticising the passengers who failed to move.

Source: Paris bus driver hailed a hero for kicking off ALL passengers after they refused to make room for wheelchair user | London Evening Standard

Visit our JustGiving page to help Vox Political’s Mike Sivier fight anti-Semitism libels in court


Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(
but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.

1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.

2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical

3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com

And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!

If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.


The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

This casual disablism has infected the UK since the Tories took office

This trolley is in a space that should be free for wheelchair users.

A disabled woman was deprived of the wheelchair space she had booked on a train because the company said it was “policy” to park a catering trolley there.

It is a symptom of the casual disablism that has infected the UK since the Conservatives took office and started treating people with disabilities as less-than-human.

Hollie Brooks was told if a second wheelchair user had booked a seat on the train, she could have had her place.

Apparently her money, on its own, simply isn’t good enough. Charming.

A disabled woman was left feeling “like a second-class citizen” when she boarded a Greater Anglia train to find her allotted wheelchair space taken up with a catering trolley and boxes of food.

Hollie Brooks, a 29-year-old audience development manager and freelance journalist from Durham, was travelling from Norwich to Colchester on 30 August when the incident occurred.

Having booked a wheelchair space with a companion seat well in advance, Hollie was surprised to hear from a member of staff on the platform that the trolley was currently in her space, but was assured it would be moved.

Upon boarding, Hollie discovered that the cart was still in the space she had booked.

The member of staff who was manning the trolley told Hollie it was Greater Anglia policy to use one of the wheelchair spaces in first class for catering facilities if the buffet car wasn’t in use.

Source: Disabled passenger felt like ‘second-class citizen’ after wheelchair space on train blocked by catering trolley | The Independent

Visit our JustGiving page to help Vox Political’s Mike Sivier fight anti-Semitism libels in court


Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(
but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.

1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.

2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical

3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com

And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!

If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.


The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

Cosseted and sheltered Priti Patel needs to meet real thugs before bandying the word around

Does this look like a threatening gang of thugs to you?

This mollycoddled minister – who once co-authored a book branding the British workforce as lazy while having one of the worst Parliamentary attendance records – is making a name for herself as a fool to equal her boss, Iain Duncan Smith.

Employment minister Priti Patel has already blotted her ministerial copy-book, bringing the Conservative Government into disrepute with her insulting and arrogant response to an Urgent Question about the benefit deaths on the last day of Parliament.

How does Priti Patel ever manage to get elected? She is lazy, stupid, arrogant and ignorant.

Now she has described wheelchair-using and walking-stick dependent pro-NHS campaigners, who visited her constituency office to plead for help protecting the health service, as a “thuggish gang”.

The only thug pictured on this page is her.

Priti Patel has caused outrage by branding these harmless campaigners – some elderly or disabled – a “thuggish gang”.Members of the group were shocked and distressed by the Employment Minister’s attack.

The campaigners, including a wheelchair user and at least two needing walking sticks, visited Ms Patel’s constituency HQ to urge her to protect the health service.

After they braved the rain outside her office in Witham, Essex, she fired off a furious letter to Unite union boss Len McCluskey, who she said was behind the campaign.

Ms Patel wrote: “The lady who works in the Witham ­Conservative Association office felt harassed, frightened and intimated when a thuggish gang of People’s NHS campaigners came to our office.”

Source: Outrage as Tory MP claims she felt threatened by a ‘thug gang’ of campaigning OAPs and disabled people – Mirror Online

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

If you have enjoyed this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!

Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(
but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

The London Paralympic legacy, two years later: Vox Political’s predictions were true

Plight of the Paralympians: This is what they were being told to expect in September 2012.

Plight of the Paralympians: This is what they were being told to expect in September 2012.

Two years ago, Vox Political warned that the legacy of the London Paralympics would be the loss of disability benefits for the British athletes who took part.

“They have proven they’re fit enough to work and therefore don’t need [the money],” is how this blog’s article of the time described the situation. “Right?”

Right.

Gratitude goes to Tom Pride for drawing attention to the plight of basketball player Jon Pollock, who has been refused any benefits at all since he became unemployed after the Games.

His situation is exactly as Vox Political predicted in September 2012. Following up on previous warnings that the Coalition government had launched a campaign of hate against ordinary people who had been claiming incapacity or disability benefits, the article stated: “We knew that, once the chance for profile-boosting photo opportunities were over… the disability pogrom would be extended to paralympians.”

How true those words were.

On the website Inside the Games, Mr Pollock said: “”I retired after London and since then I’m not entitled to benefits because lottery funding isn’t taxable.

“So when I go and apply for a job, the woman in the job centre said I should do charity work. But that doesn’t pay the bills. “The job centre have been absolutely useless.”

Mr Pollock, who has spina bifida, said: “I’ve given everything I have to my career and now I just feel like I’ve been tossed on the scrap heap. If I’d given two decades of service to anything else, I’d be fine but disability sport is just not recognised as a career it seems.”

British Wheelchair Basketball says Mr Pollock declined support that was available, but this seems questionable. If you have a choice between spending two years looking fruitlessly for work and accepting help to plan a career after sport, you’d take the help – unless it wasn’t worth having, which would be par for the course with our useless unelected government.

Why aren’t ministers queueing up to tell us how well the UK treats disabled people who could have had normal careers but chose to represent their country instead?

They’re nowhere to be seen – because there isn’t a photo opportunity involved.

Follow me on Twitter: @MidWalesMike

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

Vox Political needs your help!
This independent blog’s only funding comes from readers’ contributions.
Without YOUR help, we cannot keep going.
You can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Alternatively, you can buy the first Vox Political book,
Strong Words and Hard Times
in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

How can a company that has discriminated against the disabled be ‘DisabilityConfident’?

140425disabilityconfident

Here’s a mixed message:

The Conservative-led Coalition government wants us all to believe that the number of disabled people getting support to get or keep a job is rocketing.

But the businessman it is using to front its PR campaign founded a company that has been convicted of discrimination against the disabled in the recent past.

According to the government’s press release, Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, the founder of Easyjet, said: “Already over 100,000 disabled entrepreneurs employ an equivalent number of people in their business start-ups.

“I encourage disabled people out there who have a germ of an idea for a business, but are unsure of how to go about it, to take advantage of the support the government has on offer to help you make your business fly.”

But in 2011, EasyJet told a boy with muscular dystrophy that he could not fly – because his electric wheelchair was too heavy for baggage handlers.

And in 2012, Paralympics presenter Sophie Morgan received similar treatment.

It seems, if you are disabled, EasyJet’s business has been to keep you on the ground.

The government reckons the number of people using its Access to Work scheme has risen by more than 10 per cent, to 31,230 – and has claimed that disabled people are moving into jobs, training or work placements at a rate of more than 100 every working day.

But the press release does not elaborate on how many of these jobs are permanent, how many are merely temporary placements, how many are self-employment start-ups that will receive funding for a short period and will fold when the grants run out, and so on.

Apparently it is all part of a campaign launched by David Cameron last year, called DisabilityConfident.

From what’s on show here, it seems disabled people have precious little reason to be confident.

Follow me on Twitter: @MidWalesMike

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

Vox Political needs your help!
This independent blog’s only funding comes from readers’ contributions.
Without YOUR help, we cannot keep going.
You can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Alternatively, you can buy the first Vox Political book,
Strong Words and Hard Times
in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

No protection from Bedroom Tax for the vulnerable as it would cause ‘political embarrassment’

vulnerable

Vulnerable children and adults with disabilities or high support needs may be forced to pay the Bedroom Tax, despite protestations to the contrary by Lord Freud, after it was revealed that creating more protections would cause ‘political embarrassment’.

Current rules mean some supported housing is protected from the Bedroom Tax, benefit cap and the effects of Universal Credit (if a working version ever arrives) – but this accommodation is not exempted if the landlord is not the care provider or when the landlord is a local authority.

This means that, for example, supported housing provider Habinteg has 1,200 wheelchair-accessible properties for the disabled – but only 516 of them are exempt from the benefit changes.

Lord Freud, who is minister for social security reform, said last April that the DWP was working to ensure all supported accommodation would be protected from what he called the “unintended consequences” of the government’s changes.

Freud famously worked for Labour before the last general election, but turned against his former employers and switched his allegiance to the Conservative Party in 2009 – for which was rewarded with a peerage.

Now it seems the government has turned against him. According to Inside Housing, “in a letter sent to housing organisations… the DWP [Department for Work and Pensions] said that while it still wants to protect supported accommodation from Universal Credit and the benefit cap, it no longer wants to protect non-exempt accommodation from the bedroom tax.

“A source said the government was opposed to the move because creating more protections from the bedroom tax would cause political embarrassment.

“Civil servants cannot change the exempt accommodation definition without also adding extra protections for the bedroom tax. This means all plans to protect non-exempt supported accommodation from welfare reform are on ice.”

Anti-Bedroom Tax campaigners recently discovered that people who had been living in social rented accommodation since before 1996, and claiming housing benefit for the entire period, were exempt from the Bedroom Tax.

But the latest development proves David Cameron’s protestations that the disabled were entirely protected from the Bedroom Tax were false and, instead of changing the rules to rectify the error, the DWP has made a worse liar of him.

How much humiliation is Cameron prepared to take before he curbs the excesses of this out-of-control organisation?

Vox Political stands up for the vulnerable.
 But the site is itself vulnerable because it always needs funds.
That’s why Vox Political needs YOUR help to continue.
You can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Alternatively, you can buy the first Vox Political book,
Strong Words and Hard Times
in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

Bedroom tax is not the way to cut the housing benefit bill

They've started: Vox Political has spent the last year warning the UK that the bedroom tax will lead to unfair evictions - now they are starting to happen.

They’ve started: Vox Political has spent the last year warning the UK that the bedroom tax will lead to unfair evictions – now they are starting to happen.

Before you all hit the ‘comment’ button to say the headline is stating the blindingly obvious – of course it is. But some of our public servants just don’t seem to get it!

Today we have learned about the first eviction directly caused by the bedroom tax making it impossible for a person to pay their rent.

Mother-of-two Lorraine Fraser, who has scoliosis, arthritis and is a wheelchair user, is being kicked out of her home by Labour-run North Lanarkshire Council, for failing to pay £248 in arrears.

The event will be considered a double victory by the Department for Work and Pensions. The eviction will be blamed on a council run by an opposing political party, even though it is being forced to push through changes imposed on it by the Conservative-led Westminster government (the majority of people will not see this). And it will remove another disabled person from the benefit books in a way that will not be blamed on the DWP (even though disabled people were supposed to be protected against the effects of the bedroom tax).

This is the sort of dishonesty that will go down in history as the Coalition government’s trademark.

It may also be the reason why grassroots members of the Liberal Democrats have tabled a motion to go before their party’s conference, demanding a review of the policy.

The motion states that most areas outside large cities do not have the diversity of social housing necessary to make moving into a smaller property, locally, a viable option. In the words of Lib Dem councillor Robert Brown, it is “damaging and unfair”.

It is.

It was always meant to be.

And it’s a little late for Liberal Democrats to be reconsidering their part in making it happen.

However, there are constructive arguments to be made. For example, the government has always said the aim is to get the housing benefit bill down. If that’s the case, then it should be encouraging people to get off it – and the best possibility for that lies with working people.

Indeed, government policy is to encourage working people to seek more hours of work, or higher pay, at every opportunity – and if they achieved these aims, it would be possible to wipe huge amounts of spending off the housing benefit bill.

But that isn’t happening. Instead, we have an environment in which top bosses pillage their companies, taking home 133 times as much as the average wage while their workers have to supplement the pittances they earn with taxpayer-funded benefits.

That isn’t right.

After all, the economy is said to be improving and – while that has nothing at all to do with any efforts of the Coalition government; George Osborne is a fool – every working person should benefit from the increased wealth that we are told is now available.

Perhaps it’s time to ask comedy prime minister David Cameron when he’s going to ‘encourage’ (he likes that word) business bosses to pass the benefits of their success down the line.

When Hell freezes over, perhaps?

End of Paralympics signals benefit loss for athletes

Some of us saw this coming, weeks in advance. We knew that, once the chance for profile-boosting photo opportunities were over – whether or not they backfired, Mr Osborne – the disability pogrom would be extended to paralympians.

And that’s what is happening, according to today’s Sunday Mirror.

Team GB footballer Keryn Seal is blind and relies on his £70 per week Disability Living Allowance to get to training. He fears for what will happen to himself and hundreds of thousands of other disabled people when DLA is replaced by the more restrictive Personal Independence Payment as part of a plan to cut £2.2 billion from benefit costs.

“I can’t understand why the Government would dream of taking this money away from us. It shows a complete lack of empathy,” he told the Mirror.

Disillusioned, disenchanted and disappointed are all words I would use to describe how I feel about the Government.”

Double-amputee Derek Derenalagi, who came 11th in the discus, said the changes would have a “devastating” effect: “Not every Paralympian is sponsored and we would hugely struggle without it. We do not get paid like footballers and it really helps us.”

And wheelchair dancer Laura Jones, a star of the Paralympics opening ceremony, said she was worried her £50-a-week payment is under threat.

She told the Mirror: “If people miss out on leisure activities and sports, they end up stuck at home and that will obviously be worse for their health.”

Another thing that looks as though it will be worse for people’s health is the Universal Credit, which the government is touting as “the most radical redesign of the benefits system this country has ever seen”, adding that it will ensure that it pays people to work rather than claim benefits.

What did I say yesterday about this lie? Oh yes: Forcing people off of a benefit system that doesn’t pay their costs and into a job that doesn’t pay their costs is no solution at all and any Tory who spouts this nonsense in the media is to be mocked and targeted for unseating at the next election (in my opinion).”

Honestly… Do they think we’re not paying attention?

It seems there are problems with a plan to pay the new credit only once a month, meaning it will make a mess of people’s budgeting plans and they may be unable to make ends meet.

Also, the plan to make it payable to only one member of a household is likely to cause friction and upset the family dynamic – possibly destabilising family groups and leading to splits.

Bear in mind also that this is another continuation of the attack against disabled people, as the new credit will replace, among other things, Employment and Support Allowance. I wonder if Atos will be interviewing all its disabled ‘clients’ yet again, to find out if their missing limbs have grown back yet?

Welfare reform: will the Lords hold their nerve?

Today (February 14), the House of Lords will be debating the Welfare Reform Bill from 2.30pm. This is the Bill they sent back to the Commons with seven amendments, which MPs reversed out of hand. The government went on to state it would us ‘financial privilege’ rules to push the legislation through Parliament in its original form – an entirely undemocratic move that has led many to question the legality of the government’s tactics, and some to call for the Queen to deny Royal Assent to the Bill, on the grounds that it will not have been passed “in good faith”.

I think we all know by now that the aim of this Bill is to harm disabled people. The government has tried to create a myth about them being “benefit scroungers”, sponging off the State, but that has not succeeded with anyone other than readers of the Daily Mail. Ministers just want to take money away from those who are least able to defend themselves. Shame on them.

The question now is whether the Lords are prepared to stand up to the Coalition. Will they oppose the derisory attitude of their counterparts in the Commons, or will they just roll over and let democracy die out? How do they feel about the fact that their amendments were overturned? What do they think about the ‘financial privilege’ furore?

I suppose we’ll find out this afternoon, starting at 2.30pm.

For those of you with a deeper interest in the issues, I urge you to read Sue Marsh’s Diary of a Benefits Scrounger, but I will leave you with a quotation from today’s column: “At some point we must say “enough”. At some point, we have to accept that we have a broken system, broken procedures and that “majority rule” is not enough. If we have no checks and balances, no way to influence outcomes or mitigate harm, then the Commons is effectively a dictatorship – once elected free to wreak havoc wherever they see fit. Nothing in a manifesto, no hint of things to come, just a majority, cobbled together to deny process.”

I warned last week that we are seeing the signs of a dictatorship here. Do you really want to live under tyranny?