Thursday 20 July 2017 latest Disability News Service headlines

Latest Stories

• 
  July 20, 2017 0 Ten years on, campaigners ask again: ‘If these are not hate crimes, what are?’
• 
  July 20, 2017 0 Jared O’Mara calls for action on bullying and harassment by MPs
• 
  July 20, 2017 0 McDonnell calls for disabled-led solution to care crisis, as DPAC occupies parliament
• 
  July 20, 2017 0 DR UK’s new boss pledges better links with other DPOs and grassroots groups
• 
  July 20, 2017 0 Concerns over council’s post-18 support after ombudsman ruling
• 
  July 20, 2017 0 Disabled MP credits mainstream education for new parliamentary career
• 
  July 20, 2017 0 Senior civil servant admits draft industrial strategy failed on disability
• 
  July 20, 2017 0 Equality watchdog and parts of disability movement ‘fail to highlight achievers’

13 July update on Disability News Service top stories

The Kwug Blog editor knows that today is 14 July, but the actual publication day of Disability News Service was Thursday 13 July and Thursday is that publication's regular publication date.

Latest Stories

• 
  July 13, 2017 0 Activists set for ‘David and Goliath’ fight to defeat assisted suicide court bid
• 
  July 13, 2017 0 Government’s UN response ‘exposes failings on disability convention’
• 
  July 13, 2017 0 Inclusion London set to test social model job support, after £775k grant
• 
  July 13, 2017 0 Osborne shares ‘discriminatory’ cartoon ‘that breaches his own code of conduct’
• 
  July 13, 2017 0 Project aims for inclusion and a collective voice for ‘spoonies’
• 
  July 13, 2017 0 Labour silent on access for disabled MP excluded from debates
• 
  July 13, 2017 0 DPAC set for week of protests over social care, Atos and access to transport
• 
  July 13, 2017 0 Purple boss raises concerns over Disability Confident accreditation
• 
  July 6, 2017 0 New disabled MP accuses government of ‘eugenics’

Revd Paul Nicolson comments on preview of Ken Loach's Palme D'Or winning 'I, Daniel Blake'

Guest blog post by Revd Paul Nicolson of Taxpayers Against Poverty

Dear all,  

I went to a preview of Ken Loach's very necessary Palme D'Or winning new film I, Daniel Blake; I wept.  I am so glad 

​a special screening has been​

 arranged 

​ by the Peoples Assembly 

in Birmingham and sorry I 

​cannot be there​

. 

Life was bad for the unemployed prior to Iain Duncan Smith's reforms, when I was working with and for benefit claimants in debt. Parliament did not, however, permit jobcentre officials to stop unemployment income for one month, three months or three years with a benefit sanction. 

I reflected at the preview that I, Daniel Blake describes only one of three nightmare bureaucracies which require officials to implement oppressive laws that impact on the mental and physical health of our poorest fellow citizens and their children by creating debts, hunger and homelessness. 

Now, when the jobcentre stops an income with a benefit sanction, local authorities continue to enforce rent and council tax arrears; magistrates enforce fines for poverty related offences such as TV licence or fare evasion, both adding court costs and bailiffs fees.  Those debts have often arisen because benefit and other incomes in and out of work have been shredded since 2010. The debts pile up while the unemployment income is stopped by the sanction and are then enforced for months after it ends. 

The poverty crisis is even deeper than the tragic circumstances accurately captured by Ken Loach. 

​In solidarity, 

Paul​

from the Reverend Paul Nicolson

Taxpayers Against Poverty

No citizen without an affordable home and an 

adequate income in work or unemployment. 

93 Campbell Road, Tottenham, London N17 0BF, 0208 3765455, 07961 177889, 

https://www.facebook.com/ Taxpayers-Against-Poverty- 299911526728884/

https://twitter.com/taxpayers_ a_p www. taxpayersagainstpoverty.org.uk , 

www.z2k.org, www. prohousingalliance.com