#ESAendgame: Sue Marsh's Starting-Pistol

This is from my modern-day saint, the great activist Sue Marsh, who more often than not works from a hospital bed. Please post any comments you have on her site. Here is the link:

http://diaryofabenefitscrounger.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/esa-sos-starting-gun.html

ESA SOS - The Starting Gun

In a few weeks, I'm going to arrange for some very significant stories to break in the very mainstream press about ESA.

I've been collecting them for about 6 months and if there's any justice left at all, they will kill ESA once and for all.

They will totally change your perception of ESA and WCAs

We need a Spartacus 2 and as you all know, I've been sick as a dog.

Today is stage one. If you're in, please leave your Name and user name on twitter or Facebook (Feel free to only provide the latter if you like to keep your anonymity a little) and Constituency

You don't have to be claiming ESA or even sick or disabled or a carer. This is a mutual shame, a shared disgrace. We must ALL show politicians of all parties, the public are NOT OK with this. 

There will be a task most days, so please keep watching my blog. 

Today, I would like something very specific. What is the worst thing, for you about ESA/WCAs? I need you to simply leave a one line answer if possible, ie "1 Year Time Limit - It totally undermines any contributory principle"

The most popular of these "subjects" will make up every short section of the new report.

Share this post everywhere you can. This will be the start of our biggest fightback. EVERYONE will have to give this everything if it is to work. We need hundreds of responses to every request to make this a truly representative report from disabled people, by disabled people. The more join, the more powerful our voice and the more impact any final work will have.

What's more, by crowdsourcing our information and skills, believe me, we have 100 times the resources and ability of the DWP.

I have an awesome team in place - they produced #esaSOS in just 4 days. Hard though it will be, PLEASE, I'm still very weak and CAN'T read endless comments or pages and pages of Hansard or reports. Make this easy for me by keeping as close to the brief each day as you possibly can. I WILL cover everything, nothing will get missed. I'll ask the question you're itching to comment on, honest, but if we do it this way, I can delegate very much and empower you all to know exactly what we need.

Even a shadow of division will see us fail. This will need every group, every campaigner, every supporter, no matter how radical or moderate, how powerful or unknown, every journalist that has supported us, every politician who is fully signed up to our arguments.

If you have a prominent welfare/disability/political voice, website or other outlet, please cross post this from me. 

So today, in the comment thread below please leave :

Name and social media name/s (or just the latter if more comfortable)
Constituency
The WORST thing for you about ESA/WCAs in one line. 


****ESA is the most terrible failure of any developed nation for a very long time. The reasons are numerous and utterly undeniable. The government has failed to implement Harrington with any commitment and is actively increasing the rate at which vulnerable people face a failing and unfair test. We have engaged with a democratic process that has failed us at every stage. We have no choice left but to stop this ourselves. Over 100,000 people now face some kind of ESA assessment every MONTH. We can't afford to wait. ****

Enough is Enough. 

From today, please use the hashtag #ESAendgame in all your tweets. We must build awareness and create an army or support and dissemination. 

"Alone we Whisper, Together we Shout"


http://wowpetition.com/

What's Wrong with the BBC's Disability Coverage?

Since the ConDems formed their coalition and thus the Government of the UK some two-and-a-half years ago, disabled and chronically sick folk have been living in abject fear as one policy after another is enacted and rolled out. (I personally have had to start taking anti-anxiety medication again.) Each successive action takes a little more independence and/or a little more care and/or a little more support away from us - actually a lot more. Before the ConDems started their 'welfare reform programme', the Office for Disability Issues (ODI) statistics confirm that we were more likely to be living in poverty than healthy or non-impaired individuals. There are some eleven million Brits with a disability (the latter figure from the ODI) or approximately one in eight of the population. That's a heck of a lot of individuals being negatively effected.

Report after report demonstrates the damage being done. These reports are often from respected organisations, such as the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, MIND, The Centre for Welfare Reform; but also from activists (often the tongue-in-cheek named bedtivists!) like WeAreSpartacus. Despite all this information and lobbying; despite facebook timelines, twitterfeeds and other social media outlets filling with the voices of disabled/chronically sick folk crying out, pleading, begging; despite both national and local press covering stories of deprivation, death, even of suicides (inter alia see for example Calum's List) directly related to ConDem actions; despite all this, the BBC News has failed to cover the issues regularly, except to permit the 'propaganda' of the approved government line of benefit fraudsters (disability benefit fraud is less than 1% of total disability benefits and is massively dwarfed by the billions lost in tax avoidance and evasion), scroungers and skivers. The exception being one Panorama programme.

This week there was a parliamentary debate to discuss ATOS, the French IT company, that assesses the sick/disabled benefit recipients to determine whether such folk are 'fit for work'. The debate was opened by Michael Meacher who was followed by twenty-six MPs from Labour, Liberal Democrat, Plaid Cymru, Green, SNP and even Conservative party members who all echoed the hundreds of deaths, the catalogues of thousands of folk who have been incorrectly assessed and some absolute horror stories. The only voice that unconditionally supported the minister was a vice chair of the Tory party. Even the latter noted their was "universal condemnation" of ATOS in the House of Commons (column 1063 of Hansard). [For non-UK readers, Hansard is the official record of the UK Parliament.]

Despite this non-partisan, near unanimity; despite the details of mistreatment, statistics on deaths from the Department of Work & Pensions (DWP); despite social media being filled with comments on the proceedings (on twitter read the #esaSOS or #ATOSdebate feeds); despite The Guardian, The Independent, the Daily Express, The Star, the Morning Star, The Week and the London Evening Standard all covering the deaths; despite all this, once again, BBC News failed to cover the story on the BBC News channel, the BBC's television news bulletins nor on their website.

At this point one has to ask why such a debate with obvious newsworthiness and of interest to many of the 11,000,000 disabled Brits and their carers was not covered by the BBC. The BBC is supposedly impartial: but surely it is showing partiality in favour of the government's viewpoints by failing to report.

Yesterday, I tweeted about this to the BBC Trust (@bbctrust on twitter, but just insert bbctrust with no hashtag to see the comments submitted) and asked others to do likewise, and dozens did just that. So far no response - but it was a snowy day, perhaps the relevant employees did not make it into the office. Should a reply be forthcoming, I shall of course post an update.

However, one has to ask why should the BBC fail to report on stories. It occurs to me that there are several possibilities: not knowing; negligence; wilfulness; under orders; squeamishness. The Beeb cannot say they do not know because many of us tweet and email information to the organisation. Negligence might be conceivable if it were just once or twice, but not very likely for two-and-a-half years. Wilfuness: is the BBC really so determined to quash disabled voices and, if so, why? Could it be that Aunty has been told that they cannot broadcast non-approved viewpoints. If this is the case, who or what is giving such orders? Yesterday a fellow twitterer suggested that the BBC is just squeamish about disability issues. However, given their unwillingness to cover the Paralympics such a perspective seems a distinct possibility.

Many disabled and chronically sick folk no longer trust the British Broadcasting Corporation to represent us or our standpoints fairly. We have switched to alternative sources of information and news. In the long term the exclusion of voices will necessarily militate against the justification for the licence-fee. Indeed, it has even been suggested that all disabled/chronically sick licence-fee payers should refuse to do so in future.

The BBC is supposed to have a public-service and an educational remit. Such obviously extends to the sick and disabled viewers and their families and carers. It's time the BBC became accountable to the public who pay for its existence. It's time the Beeb put its house in order. The time is now.

[Image description: WOW codee for smart-phones.]

If you want to help the cause: please sign the WOWpetition which can be followed on facebook or twitter (@wowpetition & @wowpetitionchat) or join us on www.wowpetitionforum.co.uk; additionally why not contact the BBC Trust at the link above and tell them what you think.



For update see: BBC Trust Refuses to Answer Complaints