Disability Linkspam: Oh god, you'd think there was an election on...

First off an excellent post a friend came across: Please Stop Saying “Don’t Let Your Disabilities Define You!”: An Open Letter to Almost Everyone I absolutely agree with the sentiment here, my disability is a huge part of my identity, telling a disabled person not to let them their disabilities define them is no different to 'I don't think of you as black' or similar language towards other minorities, so why do people think it's okay, or, worse, inspirational, to say it about disability?

Now a couple by me - and I have two more in draft, plus two more I probably need to write, you would almost think there was an election on. Scarily one of the things I need to write will need me to work out what UKIP's disability policy is, does anyone know which pub Farage left the beermat in?

Election 2015 - Quick, Get the Crips Out of the Attic...Esther 'they get better' McVey, the former Ministed for Disabled People, has produced an election leaflet showing her standing next to a bunch of disabled people from the learning disabilty charity People First England. Unfortunately she didn't ask their permission, and none of them support her (and one of them lives in McVey's constituency, so woke up to find a leaflet shoved through her door token-cripping her by someone she despises). As Kaliya's pretty sharp at this stuff, she turned it into an expectation that McVey will rush out an Easy Read version of the leaflet, while emphasising that the charity supports no party.

Tory Cuts: As Bad as we Feared This picks up on yesterday's BBC story leaking the details of the £12Bn in cuts the Tories refused to detail in this week's budget. As expected they're almost completely targetted at disabled people, with 40% of Carer's Allowance Recipients to lose it at a stroke (people are pointing out Carers are estimated to save the country at least £57Bn, so that's saving £1Bn by adding £23Bn to the care bill - genius), while contributory ESA and JSA will be means tested, effectively abolishing them, and Disability Living Allowance, Personal Independence Payments and Attendance Allowance will be taxed (never mind that some people already have 100% of these deducted for care).

Kate Green, Labour's Shadow Minister for Disabled People on Labour’s commitment to disabled people I'm fairly vocal in the comments, and not in a positive way. Labour need to admit they have a credibility problem with disabled people after being the architects of ESA and the WCA (which they are insistent they will keep). their relationship with Unum, and their shabby treatment of their own disability taskforce barely a year ago.