Campaigners occupy grounds of Westminster Abbey to protest against closure of ILF

Please watch the video and read Lucy’s heart-rending story. We are steaming back to the victorian era under this sleazy government.

Mike Sivier's blog

Users of the Independent Living Fund (ILF), along with members of Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC), UK Uncut and Occupy London, have set up a protest camp in the grounds of Westminster Abbey.

Disabled activists chained themselves to the gates while the camp was being set up.

The ILF was originally set up in 1988 as a national resource to fund support for disabled people with high support needs, enabling them to live in the community rather than move into residential care. It allowed them to be active in society – in education and employment, as volunteers and trustees, as employers, and as carers for family and friends.

According to Independent Living Fightback, “Currently 17,500 disabled people with the highest levels of need receive essential support through the ILF enabling them to enjoy fulfilling lives and contribute to their communities. The closure of the fund will have a devastating…

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Art attack on Coalition policies that drive people to their deaths

A beautiful pice on Stewardship a piece by an artist about the effect of welfare reforms.
Brilliant!
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Mike Sivier's blog

A UK artist has created an art installation as a memorial to the suicide victims of welfare reform.

Melanie Cutler contacted Vox Political regarding her piece – ‘Stewardship’ – a few weeks ago, asking, “Do you think I’ll be arrested?”

The response was that it should be unlikely if she informed the media. The artworks have been displayed at the Northampton Degree Show and are currently at the Free Range Exhibition at the Old Truman Brewery building in Brick Lane, London, which ends tomorrow (June 30).

Entry is free and the installation will be located in F Block, B5.

“I have become an artist later on in life,” Melanie told Vox Political. “I was a carer for my son and, a few decades later, my father. I have worked most of my life too, raising three children.

“Only recently, while studying fine art at University I found my health…

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Protesters occupy Westminster against cuts to disability care funding

Funny this hasn’t been reported on the beeb???

The lovely wibbly wobbly old lady

Reposted from the Guardian

This protest is trending on twitter, but surprise, surprise no mention of it on BBC!

Trends 

· Change

• #BRAvsCHI
• Westminster Abbey
• #HowardWebb
• #TDP14
• #tcot
• Brazil and Chile
• #penalties
• Omg Willian
• Pinilla
• Scolari

There are approximately 200 police for 60 protesters! (love the strategic placement of the raw compost bin :-)) 

The group has urged the church not to forcibly remove them from its grounds. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

Demonstrators have set up a camp in the grounds of Westminster Abbey to protest against cuts to financial support for disabled people.

Members of disabled people against the cuts (Dpac) pitched tents and said they intended to occupy the green outside the doors of one of Westminster’s most recognisable landmarks until 22 July. The protest is reminiscent of the occupation that sprang up at St Paul’s Cathedral in 2011.

The Dean of Westminster is expected to negotiate with the…

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Chance of a lifetime

Worth trying to get your MP on side so that they are there on 5th Sept and prepared to support these changes. A start!

Jules Birch

MPs will get the chance to back major housing reforms including new significant exemptions to the bedroom tax later this year. Will they take it?

Andrew George, the Liberal Democrat MP for St Ives, has what he describes as ‘the chance of a lifetime’ to change things through legislation after coming first in the ballot for private member’s bills. Talking to him yesterday gave me a fascinating but slightly depressing insight into how the system – and party politics – work.

He consulted his constituents on a shortlist of options including housing, a Cornish Assembly and health care standards and after more than 2,000 comments has decided to plump for an Affordable Homes Bill with four key elements:

• Extension of Help to Buy or a new Affordable Homes Investment Bank to underpin the ‘intermediate’ market (shared equity/shared ownership/mutual housing) to construct a new lower rung on the housing ladder for…

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The single most devastating reason NOT to vote Tory or Lib Dem at the next election

Just appalling. We need a radical about turn. All that wasted money and time could have been used on patient care!

Pride's Purge

(not satire – it’s the Tories and the Lib Dems!)

The NHS has been severely damaged by the coalition government over the last 4 years.

But don’t just take my word for that.

Dr Mark Porter, the head of the BMA, thinks so too. That’s not just some lefty anti-government think-tank – that’s the British Medical Association, which represents 153,000 doctors, GPs and other medical specialists and staff across the country.

Dr Porter gave a devastating speech today to the BMA Annual Representatives Meeting in which he astonishingly said the coalition government must “face up to the damage that they have done” to the NHS.

In his dramatic speech, Dr Porter specifically listed the ways that the NHS has been damaged over the last 4 years by the Tories and the Liberal Democrats:

• The coalition government have imposed policies that “force us to do the absolute opposite of what our patients need”.

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10 Top Tips for getting involved in #NHS66

celebrate 5th July 66th anniversary of NHS – or what is left of it!

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and why we Oppose it

This needs to be addressed urgently. Letters to MEP’s and MP’s would help but please share around as much as possible.
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York People's Assembly

What is the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) ?

The TTIP is a scheme organized by international big business to gain access to public budgets. It’s a trade treaty that is being negotiated in secret between the European Union (EU) and The United States of America (US), and what knowledge there is of negotiations comes from leaked papers.

Your elected representatives, the Members of the European Parliament (MEP), only get to vote yes or no after the negotiations are completed!

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Latest legal aid figures. Social welfare – it’s a wipe out!

Tragic total wipeout for those who need it most.

Benefit tales

Latest legal aid figures. Social welfare – it’s a wipe out!

by nickd (Mylegal), ilegal team

It’s a wipe out!
The Ministry of Justice has today released the latest legal aid statistics. Remember these cuts were once promoted by the Coalition as one of their ‘top achievements’. I can’t help but feel today’s release couldn’t have been timed any better, the breaking news over the Brooks aquittal and Coulson conviction provides the MOJ with the ideal opportunity to slip these statistics out in silence – very much as per their usual transparency agenda….
I’m sure these will be analysed in detail over the weeks to come but for now I just want to draw your attention to the areas of social welfare law once well served by legal aid which helped advice agencies & law centres assist thousands of vulnerable individuals battle for their benefits – no easy task when…

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Cameron’s half truth over his Leveson exoneration

incestuous relationship between top politicians and media revealed going on for the last 35 years….

Westminster Confidential

Lord Justice Leveson: Pic courtesy of Leveson inquiry website

Yesterday’s clash between Ed Miliband and David Cameron over the Coulson affair was dominated by the Prime Minister’s assertion that he had been cleared by the Leveson inquiry of doing anything wrong.

He could happily quote Leveson’s findings which clear not only him but Rebekah Brooks – also now cleared of knowledge of phone hacking by a British jury – of behaving badly in any improper relationships between Number Ten and  the Murdoch empire.

But delve a bit deeper into this rather contorted report – all one million words of  it – which probably neither Cameron nor Miliband have – and you will find quite a different story.

Go to Volume Four and Appendix Five – and get one of the most devastating critiques of the incestuous relationship between top politicians and the media I have ever read from a High Court judge…

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Educating Dr Litchfield – a few facts about the Work Capability Assessment

Please read Mo Stewart’s excellent letter and then get your MP on side. WCA is not fit for purpose and has to go – NOW! NO more deaths.

Mike Sivier's blog

Dr Paul Litchfield.

Ignorance is most definitely not bliss for Dr Paul Litchfield.

The man was hand-picked by the Coalition government to review its hated Work Capability Assessment system of handling Employment and Support Allowance claims, amid rumours that previous incumbent Professor Malcolm Harrington had been unhappy with political decisions that ran against his findings. But he delivered a woeful performance to the House of Commons’ Work and Pensions committee last month.

He claimed to have no information about the staggering number of people who have died after going through the assessment system he is being paid to review, totalling 10,600 between January and November 2011 – that’s 220 per week or three every four hours. “I don’t have any information of that type; I haven’t seen numbers on that. Clearly every case would be a tragedy,” he said.

Clearly this expert has yet to gain access to some very…

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