Major Triumph

[davidgillon]

While I was busy annoying the Minister for Disabled People, other disabled activists were busy storming Parliament. Well, storming may be an exaggeration as most of them were in wheelchairs, but it was the one the press went with, as a bunch of activists campaigning against the shutting down of the Independent Living Fund* managed to get all the way to the doors of the chamber before they were slammed in their faces. In a double irony all the major news stations seem to have been reduced to using the activists video (produced by activist-journalist Kate Belgrave) because even though they had cameras on scene they actually listened when Commons officials started screaming "stop filming". A couple of PAs were manhandled by cops and a few wheelchairs dragged about, but the police seem to have managed not to injure anyone for once.

Disability fund protest at Prime Minister's Questions (BBC)


Disability Protesters Blocked From Commons Chamber (C4)



* The Independent Living Fund shuts down in 5 days time, it was designed to fund the support needs of those with the most complex disabilities and allow them to live independently in the community. The government claims that the funding is being transferred to local government, but the transfer is a one-off, the money isn't ring-fenced and several councils have made clear they have no intention of using it to support its current recipients, while other councils haven't even gotten around to doing a needs assessment on those transferring as yet. DWP claim we're scaremongering (and Channel 4 found an excellent voice-over guy to quote them - just the right level of unbearable superciliousness), but people are genuinely scared they won't be able to fund their PAs and will end up being forced into residential care (which doesn't really exist for disabled people, so they'll end up in old folks homes - this actually happened to a friend of mine for six months a few years ago, they were in their early 20s at the time) and the refusal of some councils to ringfence funding shows the fears are based in reality. The continued refusal of DWP to accept there are any risks shows every sign of this being as big a clusterfuck as ESA (think Atos) and PIP, only this time with people's direct care at risk.

Comments

[davidgillon]

Impossible to put it in a good light, and as someone noted on Twitter yesterday, even if Labour had won the election we'd still have had to invade Parliament yesterday as they've shifted so far to the right that closing the ILF is also Labour policy.

DPAC have now released the text of the letter they invaded Parliament to deliver, it's superbly written, detailing a problem whose complexity people may not be aware of in a very few, short, clear words.

And after the DWP accused them of scaremongering yesterday, they released the evidence they'd compiled by going out and hitting all 151 councils with Freedom of Information requests demanding details on what they planned on doing with the ILF money. Over 30 are refusing to use it for the people transferring from ILF and about as many again haven't sorted out what they're doing/who they're meant to be taking care of, while two thirds of the 147 who replied had no clue how much money they were due to receive. Anyone who isn't scared by the clusterfuck in progress isn't paying attention. (And DWP clearly aren't paying attention because they should have known DPAC had this information, they've already publicised it once).

I've been remarking all afternoon that DWP must find facing an evidence-based argument quite disconcerting, it's not at all the way they work!