Holocaust Memorial Day 2023

A decade ago to the day, I posted on my social-media various items relating to the Holocaust, including the following:

"The [ConDems] began a huge propaganda campaign against mentally and physically disabled [Brits]. They did not fit into the [Neo-Liberal] stereotype of the pure [hard-working family], that is physically fit with an obedient mind to serve the [economy]."

“Then after a large propaganda campaign that tapped into the populations anger about the country['s] economic state, the murder of millions began, long standing prejudice's like.......

"they think the world owes them something"

"They are a drain on the country's limited resources"

"they do not work so they are worthless"

"It would be kinder not to mention cheaper to kill them, preferably at birth"

......Are stomach turning yet they are statements I hear from people and politicians every day. Maybe not put quite as frankly or bluntly as that but the underlining argument and sentiment is the same." Rabbi Debbie Young-Sommers”

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Before the Jews, German NAZIs practised on individuals with disabilities. The gas that was used in the concentration-camps was developed for use on disabled folk. Some of the means of mass extermination were first developed for use on groups of disabled people. (Check Aktion T4 for more details.)

1:4 of the UK population has a disability. 10,000s of Brits were killed by UKgov due to austerity (Check the research yourself, I have posted links often enough!). Some 300,000 killed and 1,500,000 disabled by #Covid19 - and still rising - due to mostly failings by UKgov. The majority of all these deaths were disabled folk per ONS.

Aktion T4 killed up to 300,000 disabled individuals during the NAZI era. The Conservative legacy since 2010 is heading to equal that death-count. History repeats itself - never in quite the same way - but only if we collectively permit it to do so.

Your disregard = death

Your silence = death

Your inaction = death

🏴‍☠️☠️🏴‍☠️

Another Office for Disability Issues Fail

It has emerged that the UK Government refused to spend £125 + V.A.T. to obtain a statistical anaysis from the UK’s Office for National Statistics (ONS) into employment rates in respect to disabled individuals finding work. It was left to a disability people’s organisation (DPO), Inclusion London, to pay for the research. The Disability News Service (DNS) article can be found here. The item quotes Ellen Clifford of the DPO:

“Studies have confirmed that unsuitable employment is worse for people’s health than no employment.”

And it should be borne in mind that much self-employed work does not earn sufficient for most workers to have a decent standard of living. In other words the self-employed tend to be less wealthy than those in full-time equivalent employed positions.

Ellen Clifford ‘urged the government to “look at the types of jobs and work that disabled people are moving or potentially being pushed into and to address issues of quality instead of making the aim to get people off out-of-work benefits at any cost”.’

I should suggest that there are other issues that also need to be investigated: 

*   the appropriateness of the work to the individual, taking into consideration the nature of impediments, health & well-being;

*   whether the work creates sufficient income from effort expounded, bearing in mind that those with impairments &/or serious health issues have a much higher cost of living than non-disabled/healthy workers;

*   and, does the work have long-term or even medium-term potential.

Surely these are issues that the Office for Disability Issues (#ODI) - a fiefdom of the notorious Department for Work & Pensions (DWP) - ought to have been investigating as a matter of course. The fact they would not spent £125 + V.A.T., against a budget of £millions, to even do the initial investigation is outrageous. It also further demonstrates the UK Government’s continuing systematic failures to adequately and appropriately support disabled folk.

This is further evidence of the department’s, and of course thus the Government’s, ongoing disability discrimination. Given this has been continuing  since 2010, despite the United Nation’s (UN) reports of grave and catastrophic violations towards British disabled folk, one can only infer that the Conservative Party (the current ruling group) is riddled with hate for disabled folk.

Vote Tory To Kill Your Disabled Neighbours…

It's been a hard few months for me. Nearly six months down the road, and I still have NO care plan due to the national social care crisis. However, even if my toilette is not regularly seen to, I am now eating more regularly and taking the vast majority of my meds and at the appropriate times. Still awaiting after nearly two months to hear from DWP about PIP decision, after taking me six weeks to complete the claim-form (forty-plus page booklet!). My state of health remains poor and my cognitive abilities weak. There has thus been a dearth of blog-posts. My apologies therefor.

[Image description: white background, black triangle to the left; to the right the slogan -

I will be voting

Against the

Tories

In Support Of

Disabled People

(sic) courtesy of Black Triangle]

This morning I was sent a link to a blog-post by Fiona Robertson aka @knittingquark on Twitter on the Commonspace website.

Fiona has very kindly given me permission to reblog the post in full. Please read and share either the original or my reblog, but please share it as widely as possible on any social media platform the reader happens to use. Fiona's writing is concise and lucid and makes the arguments way better than I could.

If a state "nudges" folk to suicide, then that state is guilty of murder. This IS what has been happening in the UK since 2010 due to deliberate policies of our elected government, policies that have been criticised by the United Nations.

We disablies and our carers & supporters need to let the British populace know that if they vote for the Conservatives they will be complicit in, depending on numbers, democide or genocide.

 

[Image description: blue background, EU ring of stars to the right; to the left the slogan -

Let's make June

the end of May

© n/k]

The article is entitled: 

*

Voting Tory in #GE17 is a vote to kill people like me, and you need to know why

 

Disability activist and writer Fiona Robertson says the UK's most vulnerable are screaming for help

IT IS to their credit, and to our collective doom, that the Conservative Party are masters of controlling narrative. 

Although, much of the groundwork was done during Tony Blair’s days of rhetorical tricks and language manipulation to sow doubt about the veracity of a person’s disability, to seed suspicion and harden attitudes. It is these linguistic and narrative tricks which have been used to make people think of the tens of thousands of deaths under austerity as a sad but necessary evil, or to make people ignore them completely.

They speak as if what they say is reality, and we usually just go along with it until it is.

Theresa May’s General Election announcement included a lot of these narrative devices, accusing anyone who doesn’t agree with her of treating politics as a game, and framing the vote as entirely a vote regarding Brexit and the mandate she needs in order to negotiate from a place of strength.
We cannot, under any circumstances, allow the Tories to reframe the concept of a General Election.

This is not just a vote on Brexit, it is a vote on their entire manifesto and a judgement on their policies on everything from crime to social care to housing to international relations. Voting for the Tories may well be a vote for Brexit, but it is also unquestionably a vote for certain death for some, and permanent damage to the health of tens of thousands of disabled people.

Never, ever forget that.

When I and my fellow disability activists woke up on the morning after the last General Election, we spent an unrelenting few days tag teaming as we tried to keep people in our community alive. We were not always successful. Over and over, hour after hour, we saw iterations of the same message: "I do not think I will survive this government."

The day of the election, we had all taken a few moments to remember the people who were not there to vote because of the actions of the coalition government. We took a moment to think of the people who would not make it to the next election if we lost. 

Amid the elation so many in Scotland felt at the sweep of SNP seats, we disabled people also felt utterly betrayed and hopeless, because the population of the UK had voted to enforce extreme, frequently lethal, damage to our health.

If you do it again, if you do this to us again, we will never forgive you. You can't pretend you don't know, you can't pretend that other things are more important, that it’s not the killing of disabled people you’re voting for really; it’s the other stuff. 
 
The point of civic nationalism is that we have to take responsibility for the choices we make as part of a society. We cannot tick a box and say 'I didn’t know', or 'I care about this bit but not the other bits'. 

We have to weigh our decisions, weigh our actions and inactions, and live with the results. We have to accept responsibility, and we have to ensure that others accept their responsibility. We have to not look away.

There were 30,000 extra deaths in England and Wales in 2015 as a result of cuts to health and social care, according to research by Oxford University. There were hundreds of suicides by the very lowest estimates, though we who spend our days working with people who are struggling to survive this government know there are more which aren’t counted; that there are many, many deaths because the stress and fear and pain and malnutrition and isolation exacerbated a person’s condition to the point of lethality. 

More than 50,000 people have lost their motability vehicles and become chronically isolated. Every one of those is someone who was considered disabled enough to require high mobility care until the Tories changed the narrative of who deserved assistance, against all the evidence from expert organisations who responded to the consultation. 

There has been "almost universal" deterioration in and frequently permanent damage to the mental health of people going through the Work Capability Assessment.

We have to be completely clear to the people we speak to. We can no longer afford to mince words or be neutral because, again, the narrative is that neutrality is rationality. In situations like this, anger and bluntness are the only rational responses.

We need to tell them, with no platitudes or appeasement: "You will be voting to allow the government to kill us. We will not forget, and we will not forgive."

Nothing else is more important than this.

Do not let them change the conversation.

*

BREXIT is not as yet a fait accompli: it can still be stopped. The rights of disabled family members, friends, neighbours and disabled folk in the wider community can only be safe-guarded for the long-term within the EU and under the Council of Europe. At the moment the UK government blithely ignores international laws and treaties. Outside Europe it will be at liberty to do as it wishes with disabled and chronically sick folk. Please support us.

 

I have lost the credit for the above poster, however the creator stated that she was happy for it to be used and shared.

International Day of Persons with Disabilities 2016

This year, as part of the events for the International Day of Persons with Disabilities 2016, the United Nations (UN) wants to look, amongst other areas, at the success or otherwise of the Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities (CRPD, which I shall abbreviate to UNCRPD).

If you have been following my blog, you are probably aware that the UN decided to investigate the United Kingdom for "grave and systematic violations" of UNCRPD, which they upheld.

According to the BBC:

UK welfare reforms have led to "grave and systematic violations" of disabled people's rights, a UN inquiry has said. [Link is to 22-page report from the UN's Committee in pdf format]

Changes to benefits "disproportionately affected" disabled people, the UN Committee on the Rights of Disabled Persons (CRPD) found. [7th November 2016]

The UK is the only country to have been investigated thus far, as the threshold for investigation is set very high and huge amounts of data and reports have to be amassed prior to any investigation even being considered. UK charities, think-tanks and disabled persons' organisations (DPOs), inter alia, submitted the required information, and continue to submit same for matters continue to pejorate for those of us with disabilities here in the UK. The UN's CRPD committee made several recommendations to the UK government. Lamentably, the Conservative, often referred to as Tory, government refused point-blank to accept a single one of them. The committee apparently will be reviewing the UK government's response in March 2017 at a meeting in Geneva.

*

 [Image description: © AltrinchamHQ's own image of the cobbles]

Another area the UN wants to look at this year is the accessibility or otherwise of the built environment, specifically in towns and cities. In the past couple of years my lovely hometown of Altrincham has undergone many changes to the built environment. Prior to commencing the works, residents and users of the town's facilities were asked to comment on planned changes. As a disabled person I put my concerns to the researchers and to the councillor-in-charge and enquired as to what account had been taken of disabled and/or elderly folks' needs, etc. The councillor failed to see any need to look into how all this might effect disabled folk (thus completely ignoring the requirements of UK disability legislation). I can no longer frequent one of my favourite eateries, The House Restaurant & Wine Bar as the ability to park close by has been removed (a loss of amenity). Despite making two freedom of information (FOI) requests, I never heard a dicky-bird. Alas I have long bouts of illness, which means I could not and cannot currently pursue this failure.

One of Altrincham's major stores is Marks & Spencer (M&S). The Council decided to remove the paving in front of the shop and along much of the main pedestrianised street and replace with a cobbled surface. Whilst not the traditional smooth-stoned cobbles, which can be lethal to traverse, they are small, rough-textured oblongs (see image above). I had to wait until this past Summer to try to walk on them, as much of the year I have to use my wheelchair. I find it very difficult to raise my legs when I "walk", rather I shuffle like many an elderly person. Alas, it is impossible to shuffle across the new cobbles. I can now no longer enter M&S under my own steam and independently. I actually moved from my former home in Sale to Altrincham to get away from a cobbled street upon which I kept falling. I wonder how many other disabled or elderly folk have reduced or stopped visiting the town?

 [Image description: screen-shot from AltrinchamHQ's faceboo page]

The organisation in charge of Altrincham's town-centre PR, AltrinchamHQ, could not even be bothered to respond to my comments (see above), despite replying to many others. This is the same town-centre with a multi-storey car-park with allocated disabled bays (fantastic) close by to the lifts (elevators) that transport one to the shopping level. Fabulous one might think? Except, between the parking-bays and the lifts are manually operated doors - not electric with a push-button to open them. So, one has to await an able-bodied person to come along to let one in. In short, tokenism towards those with impairments.

A further example of poor planning are pedestrian islands in the centre of roads built to such a stupid design that a person in a wheelchair or mobility-scooter cannot safely pass someone with a pram and similar.

In a nearby town, Knutsford, a recently constructed café was built without a lift to enable disabled or infirm or elderly folk to access the actual facilities, despite the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) having been passed in 1995! (This was replaced in 2010 by the Equality Act.)

No-one seems to ever bother to check real-world usage.

The UK planning system does not in fact expect local authorities to consider the needs and requirements of disabled folk. Rather, it is expected that disabled folk will take legal action once any building has been constructed. This to any sensible-minded person is farcical. However, the authorities rely on folk not taking legal action/s. Such has become much more difficult due to Legal Aid changes introduced by the former Conservative-led and current Conservative governments.

*

From my perspective, as a disabled person born and residing in England, the United Kingdom as a whole, is not currently a great place to be a person with disability. Great strides were taken in opening access to society prior to 2010, but since then the deterioration has been shockingly rapid.

The Centre for Welfare Reform attempted to do a cumulative impact assessment (cia) using all available data. They discovered:

For political reasons, the costs of this debt is primarily being paid by people in poverty, by disabled people and by other vulnerable groups. As we have explained:

People in poverty are targeted 5 times more than most other citizens

Disabled people are targeted 9 times more

 

People with the severest needs are targeted 19 times more

In other words the attacks by government on disabled folk are deliberate. And they continue…

Is this the beginning of the end…?

I try to be a reasonable, rational and liberal (note lower-case ell) person. I am and always have been non-partisan when it comes to politics, having never agreed with the party-political system using whips that we have in the United Kingdom. It cannot be viewed by any sensible person as democratic, for it is essentially oligarchic. My parents held opposing political views and my siblings and I were raised to try to see the other's perspective. My personality - and that of very many ordinary Brits - is one that cares about one's neighbours and neighbourhood.

 The slogan reads:

I'm voting

REMAIN

FOR

OUR NHS

For most Brits social justice is, or used to be, at the very core of our values; the quintessence of Britishness. Just look at all the folk who raise money for charities &/or who volunteer, or the folk - not just relatives - who take on caring duties. Most are happy to support our NHS in any way we can - despite the on-going privatisation by successive governments. And just look at the out-pouring of care whenever there is an international disaster! We are not, however much the likes of UKIP and other extremist parties might like to believe, little Englanders. We have always been outward looking (- not always necessarily for the best as huge mistakes were made in relation to empire). Nonetheless, to this very day, millions of Brits reside in countries outside the UK and are spread right around the globe.

With the exception of a rather hateful era when Jews were exiled from England, we have welcomed workers from abroad whether refugees, merchants, traders or artists and artisans. Not only has this contributed to our rich history and culture, but this stand-point has substantially benefitted our economy.

A vote for Brexit will not mean that these folk will be forced to go back to Europe. Many have set up businesses and employ folk - who will certainly fight to retain their jobs. Most have grown networks of friends, neighbours & colleagues within communities - who will certainly fight to retain their valued members. Such folk should surely vote Bremain.

A vote for Brexit may very well mean that many of the few million Brits residing in Europe will be forced to return to the UK. The pressures on housing, other infrastructure and the NHS will remain at least the same or heighten - for many of the folk who will return will be pensioners who will need healthcare and social care due to being removed from their support networks and inclement climate here. So, if one is concerned, even worried, about immigration then one should surely vote Bremain.

A vote for Brexit will permit this and any future government to do pretty much as they please with no international oversight. The previous and current governments have acted as they please, ignoring judicial orders to obey the law of the land. Cameron has even repeatedly stated that he wants to abolish the House of Lords, which, whilst archaic and in many ways undemocratic, nevertheless is often the only check & balance on the power of the Executive (thus paradoxically acting democratically!). There is a democratic deficit within the European Union. The Executive, in this case the European Commission, has usurped too much power (rather as has the United Kingdom Executive). I agree wholeheartedly that the democratic systems within the EU have to be changed and improved so that European citizens believe and know that they are heard and responded to. However, the only way to change a system is from within. If Britain votes out, then we are immediately locked out of any kind of influence. So anyone that wants to change the EU for the better should surely vote Bremain.

Today and tomorrow one of the United Nations' committees is quizzing the UK over its treatment of disabled people, having collected a wealth of data and documentary evidence to demonstrate that we are being abused, mistreated, scapegoated, demonised and starved of funds & access due to social security (welfare) cuts, propaganda and mainstream-media misrepresentation. (See for example this article for a more in-depth analysis.) The EU has and continues to draw up laws and rules for pan-European access to goods, services and support. Here in England & Wales, the government is only now, after a couple of decades, going to try to enforce the law which is supposed to prevent taxi-drivers from refusing to take disabled passengers - yes, this has and continues to occur to hundreds of individuals each and every day. Without European oversight, I very much doubt that a laissez-faire - let alone an overtly disablist - government will pursue expanding disability access rights. If you know someone who is disabled or chronically sick, and you care about them, you should surely vote Bremain.

The slogan reads:

I'm voting

REMAIN

FOR

WORKERS'

RIGHTS

I could write about many, many other areas that the EU improves for each and every one of us - such as environmental laws that ensure clean water or the labelling of clean/dirty beaches; or laws that protect workers rights to pay, conditions, holidays; or laws that ensure our human rights§ (like not to be arrested and detained without trial, and so on). However, I have limited energy and resources. If  the reader is interested, please do your own research. Once you have done, you will surely vote Bremain.

The EU has much that is wrong with it, just like our very own political system here in the UK. Whilst one has the opportunity to vote to leave the former, one cannot exit the latter. Tomorrow I shall be voting Bremain.

*

§ Technically this is due to human rights laws (based on British submissions & jurisprudence) via the European Council; but it is the intention, I understand, of the Conservatives with UKIP support to withdraw from both the EC and the EU if the Brexiters win.

*

The images I have used were sent to me by the Labour Party. Their use here does not imply any kind of support on my part for Labour, other than the stances contained within the slogans.

Lords & Ladies Troubled By Your Sexual Practices!

Warning: this article refers to anal sex; do not continue if the subject matter might offend!

*

Apparently, peers of the realm are at it again. All my adult life they have been discussing this sexual practice or another. They are as obsessed as the modern main-stream media and popular culture. On this occasion they were caught trying to blame urban, pornography-using, heterosexual males for the spread to the rest of the country of the practice of anal sex.

[Image description: scene of man engaging in anal sex with woman,

on ancient Greek pottery; photo © u/k]

Utter poppycock*! This kind of sex has been going on for æons. When I was at university, it was then known that anal-sex, so-called sodomy, was more widely practised amongst hetero couples than between gay folk. Contrary to popular opinion homosexual men do not necessarily desire to be stabbed up the derrière. Whilst folk may have tried it, they have not enjoyed the experience and so refrain. Of course, contrariwise, other individuals enjoy the experience. As with most things: some like, some dislike. Some straights like, some dislike. And remember, dear reader, in this day and age any female partner is quite capable of giving her male partner a good rogering up the backside, and thus rubbing the all-important prostate-gland, whilst simultaneously stimulating her own genitalia, for example with the aid of a strap-on dildo.

What someone gets up to sexually is no-one else's business, as long as it is consensual. I personally would not wish to participate in sexual activity involving cutting, and so on. To me such practices are personally repugnant. But that is no reason for me to condemn nor police others' activities.

Conservatives are meant to be Libertarians or at the very least laissez-faire  i.e. hands-off approach and small state. I suggest the Tories, along with all other Parliamentarians, keep the state out of citizens' bedrooms!

* From Dutch 'pappekak' meaning 'soft dung' and thus nothing to do with penes other than a serendipitous co-incidence.

To Keep Or Not To Keep…

Yesterday, JuliJuxtaposed published the following blog-post here. She quite succinctly sums up what many disabled folk have been and are thinking about Ed Miliband and the Labour party. Please read it and share widely, as we need our disablie voices heard loud and clear.

After the blog, appear my comments.

[Image description: Ed Miliband addressing Mancunians in 2012]

*******

Not just Ed. Maybe not Ed, at all.

To Labour,

Taking into account the Media’s efforts to paint Ed as a disaster and halving it – and halving it again – the fallout around poor old Miliband is still not fuelling confidence in me that he can hold it together, even if he wins the next General Election. What kind of Cabinet will his ‘team’ make? Who will be served by it? And how much is Ed Miliband the real problem? Is his perceived weakness due more to his ‘awkwardness’ – by now a self-perpetuating force – or to his inability to discern and avail himself of useful, appropriate advice? Most of his team, whether front or back benchers or hired consultants are hardly helpful or even inspiring. He surrounds himself with the dismal advice and strategies of banality, nostalgic muddle-heads and should-be Conservatives. Did he actually choose this team? How much of it is chosen for him? Is the weakness not in his judgement, then?

The party bigwigs should make their minds up about how their individual, personal philosophies fit to the mission statement. The ‘crisis’ in the party is that, like the Conservatives, Labour doesn’t know itself anymore; like the Conservatives, Labour has become two parties in denial. Like the Conservatives, Labour doesn’t identify sufficiently with the real worlds of its electorate. So, by all means, get rid of Ed, if you think it’ll help but, for goodness’ sake: don’t stop there! Wake up and lose the stale and mouldy obstacles. Not just Ed. Maybe not Ed, at all. Are you sure you’re not worrying a little too much about the wrong Ed? Get rid of the Blair acolytes and apologists; get rid of the Brownonian bulldozers. Shift them all to the back benches or suggest they join another party if they’re so keen on being a politician but tell them that their ideas of what Labour means have turned out to be an historically nasty, neoliberal blip and that they are not at all the desired trajectory.

The social, political, economic circumstances in which this country (and indeed, the world) finds herself are too grave to waste time on loyalty for loyalty’s sake. Be loyal out of respect and faith or walk away. Keep Ed, or don’t. Put up or shut up. Shit, or get off the pot. Just make your minds up and sort it out already! Change your rules or overrule him if that’s what you want and that’s what it takes. But is it entirely Ed Miliband or is it mostly the scaffolding?

The Conservatives will kill us if they win in 2015. You know it. And you know why. Stop imitating them. Stop pandering to the right-wing press. Stop pretending you know what we want just because you wandered around in public the other day, surrounded by cameras, looking for a photo-op and a soundbite. Stop seeing us through your own projections and try actually listening beyond received clichés. Try speaking to us in more than soundbites and clichés. Be brave, get a grip and give this country or however many countries we are, these days, a credible box on the ballot. One that will be my pleasure to mark my cross in.

Whatever you do, it’s going to be a risk. Lose because of him. Win in spite of him. Win because you dared to change the guards and the message. Lose because you replaced him too late with the effect of greater farce. You have to choose which one you can live with so that I can choose.

Please… Choose integrity. Choose authenticity. Choose to have courage in your convictions. Choose. Hurry up and choose.

© JuliJuxtaposed

******

I have met Miliband: I find him to be a very thoughtful, intelligent and caring person; I also believe he does listen to those to whom he actually speaks. Alas, as you have so well encapsulated, Labour is not their leader.

Nonetheless, whilst I respect Ed, a good leader would have gone out of his way to castigate the bigwigs who shifted the disabled folk at the last party conference and would have personally apologised to the individuals concerned.

A few months back, I was invited to his key-note NHS speech in Manchester (blog-post). Those of us in wheelchairs were in a no-man's land at the back where he could not possibly see us, let alone interact with us. Again, not his fault, but that of Labour organisers & bigwigs. We disablies are an after-thought if we are even considered at all (we were not at a previous event of his & MEN in 2012 - blog-post).

Perfidious Treachery

[Image © Another Angry Voice]

The NHS is important to me;

Social Security is important to me;

Social Services are important to me;

Social Care is important to me;

End-of-life care is important to me;

Justice is important to me;

Public transport is important to me;

Energy is important to me;

Water, drainage & sewage are important to me;

Fairness, equality & equity are important to me…

None of these are important to Tories, save for any profit to be made.

I cannot find any comfortable way in which to say this…

If you vote Conservative you are a TRAITOR:

to British values;

to your community;

to your neighbours;

friends,

family

and ultimately to

yourself!

Well, that's certainly what I think and feel at the moment. %///

BBC's Irresponsible Article on Electric Blankets

[Image description: electric blanket & control; courtesy Wikipedia]

In an article, entitled Use electric blankets to keep warm, says Conservative peer, the BBC has recklessly publicised a peer's comments on using electric blankets without providing any alternative perspective and omitting to give any safety advice whatsoever. The article on this occasion also does not allow for comment so firefighters, HSE personnel or others with an interest in this tale cannot qualify the item nor add alternative perspectives. Note also that the Government (here referred to as Downing Street, the residence of the UK Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer, head of the Treasury) also failed to add any further comment - including safety advice.

'The government should encourage people to use electric blankets as a "simple, practical" way to cut down on heating bills, a Conservative peer has argued.

Baroness Rawlings said this was also environmentally friendly as blankets required little electricity.

Her comments came after the government announced a deal to alleviate increases to energy bills.

…

'The answer'

In the House of Lords, Lady Rawlings, a former government whip, asked Lady Verma: "Have the government considered as a simple, practical measure encouraging people to use electric blankets?

"They are the answer to many of the government's aims. They are very green as they use little electricity and they reduce the need for so much heating in the home.

…

A Downing Street source said No 10 had nothing to add to Lady Verma's response.'

According to The Electric Blanket Institute (red text is my iteration):

Who Should NOT Use Electric Blankets?

Just as with any electrical appliance, things do occasionally go wrong with electric bedding. For example, a control may not work properly, a blanket may become bunched up which might cause an overheated condition or a heater wire might break. Therefore, it is foolish to allow infants or small children to use these products. Likewise for the same reasons, anyone who is helpless, paralyzed, insensitive to heat or incapable of understanding the control’s operation should never be allowed to use these appliances. Some elderly people with one or more of these conditions sometimes insist on having their electric blanket. Be strong and refuse them. Show “tough love” or you may regret it.

So basically, an organisation representing the interests of electric blanket manufactures/retailers does not think the elderly should necessarily use them, contrary to the peer's idiotic notion. In other words, the very folk the uninformed and frankly stupid Baroness suggests should use electric blankets are the very folk who should not.

Shame on the Baroness, the BBC and the UK Government for not highlighting the very real dangers to using electric blankets.

Please use electrical appliances with care dear reader! %)

NHS299 Demonstration March & Rally, Sunday 29th September 2013

If there is a G_d, then surely s/he was looking down on Manchester last Sunday. Instead of its world-notorious cloud and rain, the city was domed in pure azure, not a cloud to be seen - not even a wisp - and a blazing sun beating down on its historic bricks, stone, glass and concrete. Mancunians are usually an affable folk, but, more than usual, this late September heat and sunshine brought smiles to visages and friendly banter from kind mouths. As the day spread out the crowds of milling shoppers, residents and tourists were increasingly swelled by folk from all areas and countries of the United Kingdom, uniting to demonstrate against the maleficent ConDem coalition government’s policies.

[Image description: Deansgate, Manchester, aflood with tens of thousands of demonstrators,

placards, banners & flags; © Ray Smith/SW]

Despite having no mandate from the electorate, the Conservative and Liberal Democrats (ConDems) have forced through an increasing privatisation of our belovèd National Health Service (NHS) as well as unprecedented cuts to social security benefits, now labelled ‘welfare’ by most neo-liberal politicos and the vast majority of the main-stream media (MSM). This has all been done in the name of austerity, an economic policy with very dodgy antecedents and a bad history. The ordinary folk of the UK, whether working, non-working or even middle class, are all losing out. Salaries and wages are stagnant or dropping; inflation on quotidian goods and services is astronomical; food, energy and water prices rise inexorably; mortgages are unaffordable and rents go up and up. For the vast majority of Brits their standard of living is not gradually falling but is sliding rapidly off-piste. Jobs are taken off the low-paid or they have their hours reduced so that greedy companies and charities can give them to workfare ‘slaves’.

Against this background, the Tories arrogantly and contemptuously decided upon holding their annual party conference in a city where they have not a single seat or even local councillor. Manchester has a long and proud history of standing up against the Establishment (Peterloo, Women’s suffrage, Trade Unionism, Vegetarianism, etc.). Politically as well as musically, artistically, technologically, scientifically, we Mancunians live up to our creative and radical heritage. We issued invitations to all who wished to come and rally with us to protest our increasing indentureship and the theft of our historic rights and freedoms. The call did not go unheeded. More than fifty-thousand individuals flooded into the city. At one point the march through the city centre stretched for more than a mile and, for obvious reasons, took much longer than originally anticipated to wind its way to the rallying point in Whitworth Park. This meant that Conservative Party members and conference attendees had to strive to reach the conference centre. Many were polite enough to take leaflets off protesters; many others looked down their noses at us with looks of sheer disgust. Oh dear, the sullied masses intruding on their festivities!

The night before, Jane Wowchat and Rick Tenpercent arrived at my home so they would be rested for the following day’s events. On the morrow Jenny was delivered by hubby Andrew, both stalwarts of the Save our NHS movement. With my assistant, Richard, we all piled into the car and headed off in search of a disabled parking spot anywhere near the static protest site opposite the conference venue. Rick hung out our WoWpetition banner on the railings and Jenny and Jane broke into the box of leaflets. And off we went. Well actually, to find a loo (wc).

En route we bumped into the Royal Fusiliers who would later heckle the hapless defence secretary (as widely reported by the MSM) and who were also collecting signatures for their petition. We could not stop there and then, but did later add our monickers to their appeal as well as passing on some of our leaflets.

We met many police-officers who invariably smiled, passed the time of day or even joked with us. Greater Manchester Police (GMP) have a thing or two they could show London’s Met about policing by consent rather than threat. Over the whole day there were apparently only two arrests for minor offences (misdemeanours). In fact GMP issued a press release to praise the good nature and peacefulness of the whole event. Bless ‘em!

[Image description: RevPaul in white WoW T-shirt, myself in French navy WOW T-shirt and Rico holding the WoWpetition banner featuring the comedienne, Francesca Martinez; © Jenny]

After nearly four hours in my wheelchair, I had to go home to rest. It transpired that it took several days for my muscles to recover. But heigh-ho it was well worth it: to see so many travel so far to exercise their ancient right to protest and dissent.

I would have said that I am sure that the ConDems - and the Tories specifically - got the message. Alas, the MSM could not be bothered to cover the event. It was Manchester’s largest protest in modern history and even the so-called national broadcaster, the BBC, failed to report on it in anything other than a throw-away comment during a political commentary. The MSM are failing the British public, much as in the film V for Vendetta. Still, we have ways and means of sourcing the news. This is one of the main reasons for the authoritarians in all parties fearing and wanting to control social media (SM). SM has democratised the news in a similar way that the ‘net allowed access to information and knowledge.

Interestingly much of the print media insisted, as did David Cameron our Prime Minister, that the march was an act of bullying by the unions. But many of the disabled there certainly were not from trades unions. The church members, such as the Quakers, and other charitable workers similarly were not affiliated to unionism. Many of the folk walking in support of the NHS were patients or ex-patients of free medical care who simply wished to retain what has been our right as citizens for over sixty-five years. As ever rhetorical clap-trap from those in charge!

At the end of the day a couple of thousand WoWpetition leaflets were handed out. Hopefully that will transmute into more signatories to our Stop the War on Welfare entreaty. Perhaps you the reader will also consider signing the WoWpetition. %)