Links to the News.

There are three articles in the Independent today which I wish everybody would read:

1)   http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/new-minister-for-disabled-people-says-controversial-tests-could-be-positive-8376336.html

including: "We want as much medical information as we can get," and, “I am saying, ‘Do not be fearful of this. This could be positive for you’,”  (Esther McVey, Minister for the disabled.)

 2)   http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/george-osbornes-autumn-statement-will-mean-a-winter-of-discontent-for-the-disabled-8382099.html

including: In a memorable South Bank Show long ago, Melvyn Bragg asked Ian Dury if being pitied and patronised was the worst thing about being disabled. No, Dury gently rebuked, the worst thing about being disabled is being disabled. But having Esther McVey as minister for the disabled may be a close second. Interviewed in this newspaper yesterday, Ms McVey unleashed a platitude of hyper-Brentian idiocy to offer a reason to be cheerful to those who have had their benefit removed or cut, or live in mortal terror of it happening. “Do not be fearful,” consoled the former children’s TV presenter. “This could be positive for you.”
               Couldn’t it just? Does it get more positive than being told, by some Atos brute on commission to cut the number of claimants, that Parkinson’s, crippling agrophobia, mestastasized cancer, lifelong polio or any number of disabling conditions no longer qualify you as disabled enough.

3)   http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/disabled-man-abandoned-on-the-second-floor-of-building-during-atos-fire-alarm-evacuation-8376322.html

or

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/so-atos-are-happy-to-test-disabled-people-but-not-so-willing-to-evacuate-them-during-a-fire-alarm-8381364.html

A disabled man was trapped in a centre run by Atos, which assesses fitness for work, when the fire alarm went off and staff evacuated the building, leaving him behind in his wheelchair.