ATOS Medical Services - A Dickensian Tale

The news that ATOS Medical Services doctors are threatened with being struck off by the General Medical Council should surprise nobody. Disabled people and disability organisations have for some time being warning about this organisation and the draconian powers, not to mention the vast amounts of money, which  it has been handed by this government over the lives of disabled people. It would be interesting to find out if it is a donor to the Conservative party.

It is already carrying out appalling tests on all those people living on Incapacity Benefit and there have been lurid headlines in the tabloids trumpeting the fact that their tests have found a large percentage of those being put throught the process ineligible. Terms such as "workshy" and "scroungers" have been bandied about with callous and wanton abandon. The next group of people to be handed over to the tender mercies of this piratical outfit are those on Disability Living Allowance - they will be handed over to ATOS in 2013, after which we can expect thousands more disabled people to be thrown into penury and more headlines screaming about "benefit cheats" etc.

Truly it is worth reflecting in this the year of the bicentenary of the birth of that great writer and humanist, Charles Dickens, that the same turgid and loathsome views which he used his pen and all his wit to protest against, are still abroad and nowhere more than in the minds of members of the current government such as Ian Duncan Smith. What would the great scribe have thought of those intellectual descendants of Mr Bumble and Uriah Heep? The poor must be made to suffer and the indigent and disabled should go to their beds at night feeling crushed and in a constant state of fear and hysteria about their future. Such is the world being planned for us by these sanctimonious politicians and their Blue Labour counterparts. Was there ever a more obnoxious and festering hypocrite as James Purnell the architect of the Welfare Reform Bill who now masquerades as a social reformer. Many of these characters have truly Victorian attributes and Dickens would have seen through them in a flash.

As Mr Bumble, the Parish Beadle says in Oliver Twist:

""Out-of-door relief, properly managed,-- properly managed, ma’am,-- is the porochial safe-guard. The great principle of out-of-door relief is to give the paupers exactly what they don’t want, and then they get tired of coming."

A quote which would fit snugly with the attitudes of Messrs Duncan Smith and Osborne regarding the poor and disabled in this country.

A profoundly moving play - 'The Beauty Queen of Leenane'

I firmly believe that those involved in politics or in any attempt to change society should always have a connection to culture. In my case I have tried my hand at poetry and gave several public poetry readings in my younger days. I also tried writing plays and had a one act play performed at a theatre in London. Being a Dubliner I also have always had a strong connection with literature and the theatre. Dublin is after all the city of Joyce, Shaw, Wilde and Beckett as well as a host of other writers.

I had wanted for some time to see the Irish writer Martin Mc Donagh's play 'The Beauty Queen of Leenane' which is currently running at the Young Vic theatre in London. Last year I tried for tickets but all performances were booked out. The play has already toured Broadway, London and, of course, the main theatres in Ireland such as the Abbey (Ireland's national theatre) in Dublin. Everywhere it has received rave reviews and I was really desperate to see it. As luck would have it the charity I work for received some free tickets for carers and a trip to the Young Vic was organised. At the last minute some tickets were left free and I was able to go and see the play, which I did on Wednesday.

It was appropriate that the carers group went to see the play for the play deals essentially with the role of a carer and her mother. The daughter (who is the beauty queen) and her mother live in a remote rural area of Connemara on the west coast of Ireland. I would imagine that the play is set in the 1980s for it seems an Ireland which predates the Celtic Tiger years. The mother who claims to be ill and unable to look after herself is scheming, selfish and manipulative and is one of the most unsympathetic characters imaginable. The daughter who is already 40 sees herself trapped forever alone with her mother with no emotional life outside of this smothering relationship. Suddenly a means of escape appears in the person of neighbour's son who is working on the building sites in London but comes back to the village on holiday. The play revolves around the mother's attempt to smash the relationship and to ensure that the daughter will remain with her until her death.

But the play also deals with issues common to many Irish writers and which still impinge deeply on the consciousness and memory of Irish people. These include emigration and social isolation in the new country, images of Britain and America, the grinding loneliness and isolation in rural areas and the innate conservatism, along with expectations on daughters especially to care for elderly parents, as well as mental illness which often results from such conditions. All of these are dealt with in both a profoundly moving as well as a somtimes comical manner and there are some great one liners and ripostes in the play. Not for nothing has this been described as one of the best contemporary Irish plays. The ending is both shocking and heart rending and I would recommend anyone who can, particularly anyone with an interest in Ireland, to go and see it.

I include here a trailer for the play from a production at the Lyceum Theater in Edinburgh. The Young Vic production has a different cast and the mother is played by the fantastic actress, Rosaleen Linehan.

Riots, Recession, Resistance - Public Meeting on Thursday night

Riots, Recession, Resistance

Public meeting

7pm, Thursday 11 August,

University of London Union,

Malet Street, WC1E 7HY

Speakers include:

John McDonnell MP, Lee Jasper Black Activists Rising Against Cuts, Symeon Brown Youth Worker in Tottenham and SOAS Black Students Officer 2009, Andrew Murray Unite the union, Clare Solomon Springtime: The New Student Rebellion, Zita Holbourne Black Activists Rising Against Cuts, Viv Ahmun Black Men in the Community, Josie Fraser mother of Demetre Fraser death in custody, Merlin Emmanuel nephew of Smiley Culture, Aaron Kiely NUS BLack Students Committee

Riots spread in a matter of hours across the country for the third night in a row. This, although sparked by the death of Mark Duggan by police, has been building up for many months. Brutal austerity measures, spending cuts to every public service, rising unemployment, attacks on education, police tactics on demonstrations and the increased use of stop and search has meant that anger towards this government has heated up to boiling point.

It's no surprise events have played out like they have. The government cannot continue with their spending cuts and expect people to sit back and take it. In fact even Nick Clegg predicted riots if Cameron's planned spending cuts took place! Click here to watch video.

Coalition of Resistance along with Black Activists Rising Against the Cuts have organised a public meeting to discuss the connection between recession and the riots and what we can do about it.

Please spread the word about this important meeting. Click here for the Facebook event.

Statement on riots from London Ambulance Service Patients Forum

I have sent the following statement this morning to the London Ambulance Service on behalf of the London Ambulance Service Patients Forum. There are many reasons for what is happening in London and these need to be analysed but presently the lives of people and their homes are being put at risk and the situation needs to be brought under control urgently.

Statement from London Ambulance Service Patients Forum

Please convey our support as the Patients Forum to all LAS staff who have put their lives and safety at risk last night and over the last few nights to try and serve members of the public in London. The reports of LAS staff being threatened are particularly concerning. I would be grateful if you could give them the Forum’s support and appreciation for their hard work for all of London’s communities.

Best regards

Dr Joseph Healy

Patients Forum Chair

Lambeth and Southwark Greens select campaigning Dad as London Assembly candidate

We released the following press release on Friday and I was in touch with the local press about it but a week is a long time in politics and sometimes a weekend can be almost as long. With the events of last night in Brixton this may be pushed off the pages of tomorrow's paper but the points which Jonathan raises in his selection statement now seem even more relevant. I will comment on the London riots in a separate post.

A Dad who confronted David Cameron during the last general election campaign over his plans for disabled children, has been selected as the Green candidate for Lambeth and Southwark in next years London Assembly elections.


Jonathan Bartley, who has lived in Lambeth and Southwark all his life, was also the national spokesperson for the 'Yes' campaign, in the recent referendum on changing the voting system for the House of Commons. People in Lambeth and Southwark backed the change.

A regular panellist on BBC1's The Big Questions, and Radio 2's Jeremy Vine Show he writes for the Guardian newspaper and is a paper reviewer for BBC Radio London.

Jonathan Bartley said: "Next year's London elections are about the kind of London we want to live in at a time of economic hardship and cuts. We have a clear choice between a city which favours the wealthiest, or one which champions equality, inclusion, sustainability and accessibility for all.

"It is shameful that one of the richest cities in the world should also be one where the gap between the richest and poorest is one of the widest. It is important to fight cuts to housing benefit, the NHS and youth services, but it is also important to propose alternatives. The Greens who have been elected to the London Assembly over the last ten years, have done this successfully. I look forward to working with then, and others, to ensure we get more Greens elected in 2012 and make the alternative vision a reality."

Cockell and the cuts for London's disabled - the letter the Guardian did not publish

Here below is the letter from a range of London's and national disability groups on Cllr Cockell the axe wielder and the impact of his actions on the disabled community.


Dear all,


Society Guardian is the section of the Guardian which deals with public sector services. Recently, they featured a profile of Sir Merrick Cockell, leader of Kensington and Chelsea Council, and new head of the Local Government Association, http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/jul/26/merrick-cockell-local-government-association/print
with no mention of Elaine McDonald’s case, and presenting him as “A new champion for local government”.

We sent in a joint response from several disability groups involved in the campaign to defend Elaine McDonald and disability rights. The Guardian chose not to print it, though they had told us they would consider it when we described how we wanted to respond. We thought that people would still like to see the letter.

Cockell is quoted all the time enforcing cuts, see:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/aug/02/charities-fight-survival-funds-slashed?INTCMP=SRCH

Best wishes

Claire

Response: Cockell no champion

So Merrick Cockell, leader of Kensington & Chelsea Council and new chair of the Local Government Association, “commands respect” (“A new champion for local government”, Society, 26 July)? Not from the pensioners and disabled people who demonstrated at the Town Hall last week http://kensington.londoninformer.co.uk/2011/07/protesters-storm-council-meeti.html in support of Elaine McDonald, whom the Council battled – up to the Supreme Court – to deprive her of night care, condemning her to 12 hours unattended on incontinence pads. http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/jul/06/care-battle-ballerina-supreme-court

Cockell’s ‘difficult decisions’ are easy for him and his mates. They are not affected by care cuts: most of them pay privately, and can afford it. Many are likely to benefit from state cuts, as privatisation -- of railways to hospital trusts to back-to-work schemes, care homes, homecare agencies -- profits businesspeople. Why else would they be doing it? It seems the only purpose envisaged for those of us who are older or disabled (and increasingly for anyone who is not wealthy) is as an object of profit. Otherwise, despite the lifetime contribution we have already made, we are treated as useless eaters, a drain on society. We won’t have it!

Signed Linda Burnip, Debbie Jolly, Eleanor Lisney, co-founders, Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC)
Jill Goble, Brighton DPAC
Kevin Caulfield, Chair, Hammersmith and Fulham Coalition Against Community Care Cuts
Tracey Lazard, Chief Executive, Inclusion London
Claire Glasman, WinVisible (women with visible & invisible disabilities) ……………………………………………………

"Fail better" - The resignation of Senator David Norris from the Irish Presidential Race

In typical, almost Wildean manner, Senator David Norris, announces his resignation from the race to be the President of Ireland with a quote from Samuel Beckett. Friends in Ireland were texting me already on Tuesday night to give me the news and to ask my opinion. David Norris would have been Ireland's first gay president, and certainly there was homophobia and prejudice displayed by some in the campaign. But in general the Irish people were supportive and he was way ahead in the opinion polls. He has been a senator representing Trinity College Dublin for many years and came to prominence as a campaigner for gay rights and the decriminalisation of homosexuality in the 70s and 80s. It was during this period that I knew David Norris, when I too was involved in the campaign, and was the editor of Ireland's first publicly available LGBT magazine, 'Hermes'.

I disagreed with David Norris on several things, and there were deep divisions in the early LGBT rights movement where it could be said that I placed myself firmly on the Left and David was more centre. He has since been described as "a radical liberal". He is also Ireland's foremost Joycean scholar, and indeed the house where he lives (shown in the film) lies directly across the street from the Joycean Museum which he helped to establish and which I visited for the first time this April.

Undoubtedly he made a mistake because of the letter which he sent to the Israeli authorities on behalf of his ex-lover pleading clemency after he was found guilty of underage rape (although it later emerged that it was consensual). However, it is interesting that the Irish blogger who released this information was based here in England and has a long link with the Zionist movement. And how did he access the letter? The Israeli authorities claim to know nothing about this.

Norris has a long history of speaking  out on human rights issues and has been a long time supporter of the Palestinian cause. He also has gone on record recently to attack the transfer of wealth from poor to rich both in Ireland and across Europe. Thus he would have been a radical president and he had the support of many on the Left. He has also courageously campaigned for LGBT rights for many years and criticised the Catholic Church when many others were afraid to do so. For this he deserves credit. His fall, has the character of a Greek tragedy but also has a very Irish dimension. For it was over a matter of the heart that Parnell, the great Irish 19th century political leader and orator, also fell, leaving the route to Home Rule closed and opening the doors to the struggle for Irish independence which was to overshadow Irish history for the next century.

Norris's resignation has this literary and theatrical quality and is indeed a moment of personal and political tragedy and the quote from Beckett was inspirational. Certainly his withdrawal from the presidential race will leave it much less colourful.