Social-worker bashers’ wilful blindness
On Monday night, BBC2 broadcast a documentary titled Protecting Our Children, the first of a series of three programmes which follows a social worker in Bristol as they deal with one of their child...
Indigo Jo Blogs Blog
“One Born Every Minute”: learning disabilities, babies and marriage
One Born Every Minute is a series on Channel 4 (UK) which features women giving birth, and the nurses and midwives who attend to them. They feature two women (or couples, if the man...
Another pioneer for the Tory workfare scheme
There is a long article in today’s Guardian about the racism facing the Roma population in Hungary, which has faced acute discrimination since (at least) the end of Communism, particularly in the education system...
“If Rod Liddle really wants M.E., he can have mine”
Yesterday, Rod Liddle had a venomous article printed in the Sun newspaper on page 13, which suggested that he might like to become disabled so that he could claim money off the state and...
Holby City’s ridiculous bone marrow transplant story
Last night BBC1’s Holby City aired a quite ridiculous storyline in which a 16-year-old girl with the skin condition Epidermolysis Bullosa (EB) received a bone-marrow transplant from her sister, which is supposed to cure...
Minimum wage undermined by fake self-employment
Self-employed business opportunity? No thanks | John Harris | Comment is free | The Guardian This article exposes something I have had personal experience of in the past year, which is proper jobs (usually...
PIP won’t cut the disability budget
Last Tuesday, BBC 5 Live’s morning discussion presenter Victoria Derbyshire hosted an interview with Maria Miller, the minister responsible for disabled people in the UK, and various disability activists including Kaliya Franklin of Spartacus...
Are Muslim women being left up on the shelf?
Why British Muslim women struggle to find a marriage partner | Syma Mohammed | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk Syma Mohammed is claiming that Muslim women find it significantly more difficult than men to...
Retail “work experience” is nothing of the kind
Why the government was wrong to make me work in Poundland for free | Cait Reilly | Comment is free | The Guardian Cait Reilly is currently suing the government after the DWP forced...
Just published: Kaliya Franklin interview transcript
I have just published a transcript of an interview Kaliya Franklin, one of the major authors of the “Spartacus” report I blogged about here, that she gave to Resonance FM which was broadcast yesterday...
What I really wanted from T-Mobile
The other day I finally got round to changing my T-Mobile tariff from a £25/mo tariff which covers the cost of a phone, to a £10/mo SIM-only tariff (which was reduced to half that...
The Mail, Gerada and the alternative to DLA
Recently a group of people with various disabilities and chronic illnesses (some of them in very precarious health, two of them having been admitted to hospital in the last few days and two others...
Nobody ever knows the heart of anyone else
The hearts of white people, part II « Abagond I saw this post after a friend on a social networking site posted a link to it. The author, who claims his blog is a...
Why we protect vulnerable prisoners
Yesterday the two men convicted of murdering the black teenager, Stephen Lawrence, when they were teenagers were jailed “at Her Majesty’s pleasure” (effectively a life sentence), one for a minimum of fourteen years and...
Getting used to my new Mac
As I think I’ve said before, my main present (from my parents) this past Christmas was a Mac. I laid out my reasons for wanting a Mac in a post a couple of weeks...
Jones will come back!
There is a scene in Orwell’s Animal Farm in which the pigs (who had become the ruling class of the post-revolutionary farm once Farmer Jones had been thrown out) and the other animals argue...
Young people need to know that actions have consequences
Response: Sentencing of young adults should take their maturity into account | Comment is free | The Guardian This article, by Vicki Helyar-Cardwell of the Criminal Justice Alliance, appeared in the “Response” section of...
Laurie Penny and breast implants
French exploding breast implants — hilarious, right? Wrong | Laurie Penny | Comment is free | The Guardian I've been following the story about the French breast implant recall with some interest, as it...
2011: the year Linux stopped being fun
In less than a week from now, I expect to be in possession of a Mac, most likely a Mac mini. It's taken a long time since I last had an up-to-date Mac —...
Ayn van Dyk: seized for no reason, spends 10th birthday in care
Single father fighting to get autistic daughter back This report tells part of the ongoing story of Ayn van Dyk, who was seized from her home, which she shared with her father and two...