Independent Living Fund for severely disabled scrapped

[Rannaldini]

Another genius idea here

Last year I complained to the BBC about this disability fraud story, because it implied the guy's crime was working while receiving DLA, muddying the fact that he actually failed to inform about a material change.

While I was pleased the reporter took the trouble to reply in detail, his answer, in Sept 2009, left me gasping [my bold]:

"I was the reporter who filed the story on the man sentenced for fraud. It was a few weeks ago now and I can't remember the precise details but I do recall that I had at least two conversations with the head of the press office for the relevant government dept. Your comments had been passed to me on the road and in one of the calls I put your view to them and they were happy with my final wording. "

Alas I was too unwell at the time to pursue this.

So unhelpful, perhaps, Maria M - but indisputably true!

(Acknowledge different governing party, but same govt depts and policies.)

at that case and the response!

Here's the page 'About Maria Miller' from her website.

Not much on there about her being the Minister for Disabled People, is there? It was months after she got the job that it even appeared on the fucking CV bit at the bottom.

I wonder if that reflects how important she and the rest of the government think the role actually is.

I mean, why do we even need a minister for them? Now that they'll be stuck at home where they belong, out of sight, out of mind, why should we even PRETEND to represent their interests in government? Hmmm? HHHMMMM?!?!? , so I'm not even wearing a fucking Santa hat.

At best her role is to be a fig leaf for the dismantling of this chunk of the welfare state - "of course we're looking after the vulnerable, look they get a minister and everything."

At worst it's to facilitate the destruction and deliver it for the Treasury.

On current evidence I incline to the latter. She certainly ain't working for the disabled - do you think we could sack her?

this is a disgrace and a bloody huge disgrace that this has not had the publicity this deserves

only read about this on here and now have no personal involvement with disabilities (used to)but think this is so unfair

sure most of the country dosent know either

should be more prominent

Good luck with any campaign,just wanted to add my suppport

Wish there was something we could do en masse to draw attention to disabled people. A march seems a little difficult, especially as so many couldn't make it, any other ideas?

Scary amounts of effort needed to Do Something.

I'm not convinced by my own idea here, but is there any point in making it personal to Maria M? "Not working for us" or something as a slogan.

She's the face, not the main problem, but a high profile attack on her ministerial competence - "Look, she doesn't know her figures and lies is disingenuous," could be a platform for unpacking the whole disinformation campaign.

The country's angry - each person about their own wound - and ready to ask those Big Questions about What Sort of Society Do We Actually Want.

Nah, they'll just get rid of her, move her elsewhere and pretend that it solves the problem. Giving them a nice easy scapegoat.

Oh absolutely.

The real target would be close scrutiny of the things she's saying - giving these the lie would make it harder for anyone else to propagate same. Particularly if associated with venality or shame for the person saying them.

But I agree, not exactly a nuke.

Random thoughts

Need to know what we'd be asking for, not just what we're against. And sell that in context of Austerity.

Would need to research & co-ordinate with what separate disability charities are doing - there may be stuff in the pipeline anyway where we could just swell the numbers.

Mumsnet disability march, appealing to the able-bodied to do the "Be our Voice" thing? But it would be just another ignorable march.

Cyber demo. Also ignorable. Would need a hook to make it "zeitgeist" and appeal more broadly.

High profile legal case against government if any laws being broken - JobCentres already in breach of DDA big time regards accessibility and reasonable adjustments wrt Work-Focussed Interviews. I had my eye on prosecuting but was unable to get the fuckers ever to do anything on paper, even when that itself was a reasonable adjustment. And it turns out that being too ill to work means, oh surprise, I was too ill to work even harder suing people. Plus it costs.

I heard from a friend who works with MPs that when ESA came in about half MPs' caseloads became sorting out the appalling problems. So MPs know things aren't right.

Sorry, that's the contents of my brain rather than a plan of campaign...