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

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  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’

June 29, 2017 headlines from Disability News Service

The latest news from Disability News Service was published today. Very few of these stories will even be mentioned on the BBC, and that is all the more reason to flag them up here, to help make readers aware of them.

Dude Swheatie of Kwug

Latest Stories

• 
  June 29, 2017 0 New disabled commissioner ‘astounded and offended’ by EHRC treatment
• 
  June 29, 2017 0 UN confirms that UK government’s treaty violations were both grave AND systematic
• 
  June 29, 2017 0 Court awards disabled woman ‘aggravated’ damages for ombudsman discrimination
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  June 29, 2017 0 Mencap care staff ‘called resident “poison dwarf” and reused feeding syringes’
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  June 29, 2017 0 Ministers’ silence over why WCA legislation is missing from Queen’s speech
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  June 29, 2017 0 Crossbench disabled peer calls for an end to austerity, and the misery it has caused
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  June 29, 2017 0 Disabled people ‘have too little awareness of rights’ in lead-up to Brexit
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  June 29, 2017 0 Disability arts misses out again, despite huge rise in diverse-led Arts Council funding
• 
  June 22, 2017 0 Queen’s speech: Government appears to dump Mordaunt’s WCA election promise
• 
  June 22, 2017 0 Queen’s speech: May ‘abandons’ election pledge on access

KUWG Diary 21 Oct to 13 Nov 2016

DEADLINE: Fri 21 Oct Proposed Changes To Council Tax Reduction Scheme by Camden Council. Ensure your views are included in the consultation which may result in scrapping Council Tax for JSA (& other?) claimants. https://consultations.wearecamden.org/corporate-services/proposed-changes-to-council-tax-reduction-scheme-2/consult_view 

 

Sat 22 Oct, 11.30am Axe The Housing Act – National Summit by Defend Council Housing. At Hamilton House, Mabledon Place London WC1H 9BD (tube: King’s Cross St Pancras) http://www.defendcouncilhousing.org.uk/dch/resources/AtHASummit22Oct.pdf

 

Tue 25 & Wed 26 Oct, 7.30-9pm Land of the Three Towers by You Should See The Other Guy – female politically engaged theatre group. The play depicts the struggles of Focus E15 where women occupied 4 perfectly liveable council homes which been empty for 8 years. Free or donation. At Silchester Estate in Kensington, Maxilla Centre, 4 Maxilla Walk, W10 6NQ (tube: Ladbroke Grove) https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/land-of-the-three-towers-silchester-estate-kensington-maxilla-centre-tickets-27464222228

Wed 26 Oct, 1pm-5pm Disability Action Theatre and the Economy by Disability Action in Islington. Would you like to
Have your say about the economy and how it impacts you and other disabled people?
Participate in a creative workshop to generate ideas and strategies for what the future should look like?
Watch a participatory theatre performance created by disabled people to generate discussion and action towards economic justice?
We believe that everybody should be able to have their say about the UK's economy
Location: Voluntary Action Islington, 200A Pentonville Road,LondonN1 9JP View Map
Further details: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/disability-action-theatre-and-the-economy-registration-28746820514
 
Wed 26 Oct, 2.30-4.30pm Art As Action Workshop by You Should See The Other Guy – female politically engaged theatre group. A workshop on storytelling & creating protest songs as done in Land of the Three Towers. Come celebrate your home, tell your struggle, and together we'll make a protest song about it. At Silchester Estate in Kensington, Maxilla Centre, 4 Maxilla Walk, W10 6NQ (tube: Ladbroke Grove) https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/land-of-the-three-towers-silchester-estate-kensington-maxilla-centre-tickets-27464222228

 

Wed 26 Oct, 5-6.30pm How We Resist Workshop by Radical Housing Network, Eviction Resistance Network. Estate under threat demolition?  Got an eviction notice? You are not alone & you CAN fight it. Learn tools you can use to build campaigns to stop buy offs, demolitions & stop evictions. At Silchester Estate in Kensington, Maxilla Centre, 4 Maxilla Walk, W10 6NQ (tube: Ladbroke Grove) https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/land-of-the-three-towers-silchester-estate-kensington-maxilla-centre-tickets-27464222228

 

DEADLINE: Thu 27 Oct Consultation: Transforming Our Justice System by Ministry of (in)Justice, who plan to digitalise benefit appeals so claimants won’t be seen in person by the judge or expert panel members (i.e. doctors present at tribunals). This will lessen our chances to win appeals. Nip it in the bud! https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/oct/12/online-benefits-appeals-tribunals-disabled?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other Consultation itself: https://consult.justice.gov.uk/digital-communications/transforming-our-courts-and-tribunals/

 

Thu 27 Oct, 11.30am-12.30pm KUWG Leafleting at Kilburn Jobcentre, 3 Cambridge Ave, NW6 5AH map link:http://streetmap.co.uk/map.srf?x=525454&y=183527&z=0&sv=NW6+5AH&st=2&pc=NW6+5AH&mapp=map.srf&searchp=ids.srf

Transport for London Journeyplanner interactive link: https://tfl.gov.uk/plan-a-journey/

 

Thu 27 & Fri 28 Oct, 7.30-9pm Land of the Three Towers by You Should See The Other Guy – female politically engaged theatre group. The play depicts the struggles of Focus E15 where women occupied 4 perfectly liveable council homes which been empty for 8 years. Free or donation. At Rotunda, Cressingham Gardens, Tulse Hill, SW2 2QN https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/land-of-the-three-towers-cressingham-gardens-tickets-28000930537?aff=erelpanelorg

 

Fri 28 Oct, 2-7.45pm No One Turned Away: Housing Is A Human Right Crisis are calling on MPs to change the law so that no one is turned away when they approach their local authority for help & homelessness is a priority for single people. Streetskitchen.co.uk will be taking their kitchen to Parliament that day & campaign for #NoMoreDeathsOnOurStreets At Parliament Square, Westminster SW1A (tube: Westminster) https://www.facebook.com/events/708569762615517/ 

Sat 29 Oct, 10am-7pm London Anarchist Bookfair at Park View School, West Green Road N15 3QR (tube: Turnpike Lane or Seven Sisters)http://anarchistbookfair.org.uk/

 

Sat 29 Oct, 12-4pm UFFC Annual Remembrance Procession 2016 by United Families & Friends Campaign (UFFC). Since 1999, the UFFC holds its annual remembrance procession from Trafalgar Square to Downing Street to remember loved ones who died in custody. A disproportionate number of them were Black & Minority Ethnic people dying in police custody. https://www.facebook.com/events/1334523326576403/#

 

Fri 11 Nov, 10am-5.30pm Housing Advice Conference 2016 by z2k – Zacchaeus 2000 Trust. Update on law & practice for housing advisers in statutory & voluntary sectors. The key annual event for Housing Options & Housing Advice staff in local authorities, Citizens Advice Bureaux, Law Centres or independent advice centres. Fee: £40 cons. Book first, only 80 places. http://z2k.org/2016/10/housing-advice-conference-2016/

 

Sat 12 & Sun 13 Nov, all day? Socialism 2016 by Socialist Party. Weekend ticket: £16 unwaged. At The Institute of Education, 20 Bedford Way, London WC1H 0A (tube: Russell Square) http://www.socialismweekend.socialistparty.org.uk/

Global corporate lobbyists and right wing politicians only hate regulation when it is not on their terms. Screwing the disadvantaged is their staple diet

Britain's MEPs and poor folk face threats imposed by Brexit, including dodgy trade deals

'TTIP — the hidden threat' poster should include reference to the threats to social security and poor people

With the Brexit vote, if Britain does leave the EU it seems to this blogger that both Britain's Members of the European Parliament and poor people are more likely to be screwed.

With Britain out of the European Union Parliament, there would by definition be no more seats for British Members of the European Parliament in the European Parliament; and global corporate lawyers would seize the opportunity of a Conservative & Unionist Government ever more desperate to enter dodgy trade deals and dismantle the welfare state.

Regarding dodgy trade deals, there would be a more exclusively UK trade deal with global corporations from the USA. On her website that is still up and running at present, Molly Scott Cato MEP (South West England, Green Party of England & Wales) looks at the perils and pitfalls for the UK as Germany looks like it is pulling out of the 'Transatlantic Trade & Investment Partnership' (TTIP).(1)

'Privatisation of public service delivery' equals dismantling of the welfare state

Kwuggies (Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group members) have been against TTIP for about two years now, and of course deeply concerned about what corporate lawyers would want to do to not only the NHS, but also the welfare state as a whole. One of the worst 'players with people's lives' in the American health insurance industry — Unum — has been 'advising' successive UK  governments  on 'welfare reform' since the early 1990s.(2) (3) 

The Disability News Service has reported that in 2005, whilst at Unum, Professor O'Donnell [now Chief Medical Officert at Maximus, the company that replaced Atos' administration of Work Capability Assessments for the Department for Work & Pensions] wrote: "We know that our views and understanding are not yet in the mainstream of doctors' thinking, but Government Policy is moving in the same direction, to a large extent being driven by our thinking and that of our close associates, both in the UK and overseas."(4)

Regarding the then Unum Chief Medical Officer's reference to the 'direction' in which UK Government Policy was moving in 2005, there has been the ongoing matter of the regulation of psychotherapeutic professionals and the standards, methodology and 'outcomes' by which they operate.(5) That has more recently extended to the recruitment or attempted recruitment of helping professionals such as pscyhotherapists and counselling professionals into 'delivering the work cure'.(6)

There is further encroachment of Unum and its associates into the dismantling of the welfare state even without even more dodgy trade deals:

In Secrets and Lies: Maximus the leader of the inhumans we [Disabled People Against Cuts] ask why Disability Rights UK have agreed to a) be part of the Maximus testing process on the WCA [Work Capability Assessment] and b) why they've teamed up with Unum and other insurance companies to develop a TV programme showing how much better off disabled people will be if they take out private insurance. With user-led disability organisations like these we don't need enemies.(7)

Workfare — 'work for your benefits' exploitation — originated largely in the USA under the Clinton Presidency, ridiculing Clinton's purported aspirations of being kinder to poor people than his Republican opponents. One of the major — and fraudulent — players with vulnerable people's lives that emerged from America's introduction of workfare was Maximus Incorporated.(8) (9)

Revd Paul Nicolson of Taxpayers Against Poverty has drawn attention to the lack of human rights orientation in American-based accountancy firm Grant Thornton's accountancy framework:

I had specifically drawn Grant Thornton's attention on the 3rd May 2015 to the work of the Government Office for Science and the Royal College of Psychiatrists showing that debt is linked to mental health problems. Grant Thornton replied on the 5th May 2015,

"We have no remit over related public sector bodies nor to opine on the impact of this policy on the well-being of those required to pay council tax."(10)

That is the kind of mentality that we face. Corporate lawyers' and accountants' orientation to the rights of 'shareholders', 'investors' and 'stakeholders' with financial/legal clout seem to reign supreme; and TTIP-type deals are driven by 'Investor to State Dispute Settlement' (ISDS) corporate law enforcement that overrides democracy and the rights of poor people.

The UK Government's systematic abuse of disabled people's rights continues while an investigation of its actions is still pending. Disability News Service reports:

Delayed UN examination of UK government 'will take place next year'Disabled people's organisations and grassroots groups are set to call on disabled people across England to provide the evidence they need to prepare a "hard hitting" report on the government's failure to implement the UN disability convention.The Reclaiming Our Futures Alliance (ROFA) has announced that it will put together a "shadow report" to submit to the UN's Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). It emerged this week that the Committee is set to hold its delayed public examination of the UK Government's progress on implementing the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) next year; the first time the UK has been examined since the Labour government ratified the Convention in 2009....(11)

Do the devisers of ISDS-driven trade deals have any consideration regarding the rights of disabled and disadvantaged people re UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities? Any possibility of 'government by corporate law firms' must be suspended until that investigation has been carried out, I would argue

Britain's Members of the European Parliament may no longer have seats in the European Parliament, but they and Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group members can still engage in extra-parliamentary activity — activity outside parliaments. Our extra-parliamentary activities still include the Internet.

Dude Swheatie of Kwug

Link addresses

1. http://mollymep.org.uk/2016/07/19/ttip-brexit-uk-us/
2. http://dpac.uk.net/2013/02/unum-finally-nailed-through-bragging-on-driving-government-thinking/
3. http://dpac.uk.net/2015/02/maximus-and-the-fit-for-work-service/
4. http://dpac.uk.net/2015/02/maximus-atos-and-work-capability-assessments/
5. See especially Jennifer Maidman's detailed comment at http://www.communitycare.co.uk/blogs/social-care-experts-blog/2009/08/cognitive-behavioural-therapy/
6. https://scottishunemployedworkers.net/2016/07/11/psychocoercion-and-unemployment-a-marriage-made-in-austeritys-hell/
7. http://dpac.uk.net/2015/01/dpac-2014-review-toryroadtoruin/
8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximus_Inc.
9. http://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/?s=maximus
10. http://taxpayersagainstpoverty.org.uk/news/summoned-to-court-for-civil-disobedience-of-laws-damaging-the-health-and-we
11. http://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/delayed-un-examination-of-uk-government-will-take-place-next-year/

Seen this morning at Community Care magazine website:

‘Social work is about human rights, not assessing the life out of people’

Calderdale's principal social worker for adult services Rob Mitchell talks decision making, difficult cases and what motivates him to do the job

by Rachel Carter on July 6, 2016 in Adults

Continue reading at:
http://www.communitycare.co.uk/2016/07/06/social-work-human-rights-assessing-life-people/

Maybe we could say the same about what welfare reform should be?

See also 
http://kilburnunemployed.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/un-publishes-damning-report-on-uk-benefit-sanctions.html

and
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/sickness-benefit-clawback-firm-tells-1096774#B8KtBocjDkoSrRF0.97

Tony Cox trial and the EU referendum: Whose 'evidence'? Whose 'verdict'? Whose politics? Whose 'voting rights'

By Dude Swheatie of Kwug

Tony Cox' supporters rolled up outside the court in Dundee on his trial day

The report from Scottish Unemployed Workers Network (SUWN) — Class 'Justice' —regarding Tony Cox' trial yesterday does not make joyous reading for KUWG members (Kwuggies) and welfare advocates everywhere: 

The sheriff (judge) presiding in the case found Tony 'guilty' of 'threatening behaviour' towards the staff of privatised disability assessment company Maximus, acknowledging in his verdict that it all boiled down to whose evidence he preferred despite contradictions in the evidence provided by Tony's accusers. 

It would also seem — at least according to this blogger's perception of things —that regarding the Sheriff's apparent contempt for the evidence available from the vulnerable woman Tony attempted to accompany to her Work Capability Assessment, he sided with the view that as the taxpayer-funded privatised assessor, Maximus and its staff knew what was best for the vulnerable person Tony was attempting to support. And it did not matter one jot what the vulnerable person herself had to say in response to very loaded questions from the judge.(1) 

Loaded questions betray one's prejudices, and that is a clear basis of rapport between Sheriff Griffiths and what MaximusUK likes to represent its 'Eligibility Support' [sic] as.

Maximus | United Kingdom: Eligibility Support — "Processing eligibility support claims quickly and efficiently" [sic]

Whose 'evidence'? Whose 'verdict'? Whose politics? Whose 'voting rights'? And allegiance to who and to what?

The SUWN blog post reports on an 'in our experience' framework regarding MaximusUK and its 'output' or the fruits by which Maximus and Tony shall be comparatively 'known' and omits reference to, say, Labour MP Louise Haigh's evidence regarding the 'corporate outsourcing giant's "track record, ethics and even criminal behaviour of Maximus in delivering public contracts in the US" before being appointed to replace Atos as WCA company of Conservative Government choice. Haigh has said of MaximusUK 'Eligibility Support' output on the basis of her publicly funded casework:

"There seems to be an alarming trend of cases being rejected based on factual errors or even — I hesitate to say this — falsification.

"I have had several cases of people telling me that their assessment report bears absolutely no relation to the assessment that they experienced with Maximus or Atos [the company that it took over running of Work Capability Assessments (WCA's) from].

“One or two cases could be dismissed as an honest mistake, but the situation appears to reveal a disconcerting pattern of behaviour that indicates that the trade-off between cost-cutting and profit maximisation is being felt by very vulnerable people.”(3)

This blogger would say that MaximusUK's claims in general are about as valid as those of the Vote Leave campaign regarding how much money could be re-allocated to the NHS by Britain leaving the European Union. Now that Britain has apparently voted to leave the EU, we shall probably see what truth there is regarding such claims, and what the real public spending priorities of those left in charge will be.

Regarding the downfall of David Cameron resulting from the Vote Leave decision of those who were deemed 'eligible' to vote in that referendum — whatever their reasoning for that decision — there will be new 'leadership' in Downing Street. I suppose that that 'leadership' will reward its BBC News supporters for all their 'services to democracy' in favouring Vote Leave propaganda during that referendum.

As a Green Party member, I shudder regarding the diminishing prospects for furthering of equalities legislation and democracy that EU membership has brought us. Further, to combat such international issues as climate change, terrorism, tax evasion, imbalances of economic power, international disputes, etc, UK involvement in EU cooperation is essential and will be tragically absent

Kilburn Unemployed (KUWG) members are of various political parties and varying positions regarding EU membership. Some though have had no say in this referendum because of their nationality not being British. 

One of the huge advantages that birthright British citizens have over those wishing to claim British citizenship is that they do not have to 'pledge allegiance to the Crown'. As someone who very much prefers monarchy and finds the kowtowing to court decisions such as the 'Tony Cox is guilty despite absence of CCTV evidence' that would 'reward' Tony with a lighter sentence to the detriment of welfare advocates everywhere.

I regard such directives as worthy of contempt rather than allegiance. (I have greater 'allegiance' to my non-UK citizen friends and comrades in Kwug than I have for a birthright publicly funded family of benefit claimant royalty and the courts operating in its name that make some very dodgy decisions.) What do you reckon?


Link addresses

1. https://scottishunemployedworkers.net/2016/06/23/class-justice/
2. https://www.maximusuk.co.uk/health-programmes/eligibility-support
3. http://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/maximus-has-falsified-results-of-fitness-for-work-tests-says-mp/

"Universal Citizens income boosts net GDP and human happiness," says one of wealthiest 1% of UK population

From Revd Paul Nicolson of Taxpayers Against Poverty

Someone among the 1% of the wealthiest has commented on Taxpayers Against Poverty Facebook page

Dear all, 

We are having an excellent debate about benefit sanctions on the TAP facebook page. This post has so far reached 42,208 people, its has been liked by 1,326 including the 181 likes in the 650 shares. There are 123 comments. 

NO SANCTIONS WITH OUT A FAIR TRIAL

In letter to the Guardian in the previous post I suggest that a person accused of abuse of tax payers funding of human need should be given a fair trial because that does not happen now. In the jobcentres there is no fair trial before the imposition of a deeply serious punishment - cancellation of the means of subsistence.

1. there is no independent judge as in the courts - jobcentre officials are implementing government policy
2. there is no opportunity for the accused to be represented
3. the housing and council tax benefits are canceled by the computer of the jobcentre which sends the cancellation signal of HB and CTRS (New CTB) to the local authority computer - making the applicant reapply for HB and CTRS - which can take weeks to reinstate.
4. the DWP is content to make people hungry. 
5. total cancellation of the means of subsistence is a disproportionate and unjust punishment.

We so far have 11,249 TAP page likes.

All good wishes, 

Paul

THIS THOUGHTFUL CONTRIBUTION IS FROM SOMEONE AMONG THE 1% OF THE WEALTHIEST BRITONS. IT IS EXTRACTED FROM TAP FACEBOOK PAGE  AND HAS BEEN RE-POSTED BY TAP FOR FURTHER DISCUSSION. 

THANK YOU "Peculiar Musings" 

I have multiple degrees and an income that puts me in the 1%.

The basic issue is the state's "human right" guarantee than nobody in our society should be allowed to starve or go homeless.

It would be political suicide to openly revoke the underlying guarantee of the welfare state. However, austerity has been implemented as death by a thousand cuts. You can still claim benefits, but the bureaucracy will make it more hassle than its worth and deliberately introduce enough arbitrary rules that statistical reductions in payouts can be made, just by excluding people for a minor technically.

This is probably counter productive in most cases. People wanting to game the system are the ones most likely to pay attention to the technicality rules. For everybody else, the sanctions create a financial emergency that distracts from the bigger picture goal of getting their life back on track.

The alternative to sanctions is a universal citizens income. 42% of GDP already goes to the government through taxation, so we already have a significant amount of convoluted income redistribution.

Removing all conditionality means some people will chose not to work, but that already happens under our existing system. This is a cost of doing business for making a "human rights guarantee", but one in the grand scheme of things we can actually afford as a country to make.

The net result is to give people the freedom and security to focus their attention on their long term needs, rather than being constantly distracted by short term emergencies. 

My belief is that both net GDP and human happiness would grow as a result.

Taxpayers Against Poverty

No British citizen without an affordable home and an adequate income in work or unemployment. 

93 Campbell Road, Tottenham, London N17 0BF

020 8376 5455

07961 177 889, 

www.taxpayersagainstpoverty.org.uk,  

www.facebook.com/pages/Taxpayers-Against-Poverty/299911526728884, 

https://twitter.com/taxpayers_a_p

 

www.z2k.org, www.prohousingalliance.com

A submission to an EU consultation about 'TTIP'

A submission to an EU consultation about 'TTIP'

TTIP stands for 'Transatlantic Trade & Investment Partnership' and has already been referred to on this blog site. Now the campaigning organisation 38 Degrees has intervened toward facilitating EU citizen input into this consultation where the EU commissioners have previously hindered Swheatie's involvement.

The text of Swheatie's input appears below, with a link to the John Hilary briefing added.

Swheatie's submission in response to the 'public consultation' on TTIP

A pamphlet by John Hilary of War On Want about the dangers of TTIP listed the TTIP portal of the European Commissioners website and so I went there, aiming to input what I had to say about the matter. Thus I was instantly confronted with an invitation to give feedback on why I was visiting that site that day, and told that the survey should only take me a few minutes.
  
I know that I am a person with a learning difficulty that makes my mental processing among the lowest few percentile but I was appalled at how 'norm-based' that rubbishy survey was. Further, when I had given up on that survey as a complete distraction from my original purpose and attempted to locate any details regarding the deadline for submissions to the 'consultation', I found that the TTIP portal seemed to be designed more to obfuscate than to help with any real consultation.

What I did glean from my perusal of that website was that 'investors' were being presented as angels who must not be abused, and that that is the basis upon which 'Investor-to-State Dispute Settlement' exists, and that there was something about the law operating within a country [rather than any reference to the UN Declaration of Human Rights]. I believe that ISDS could lead to situations like how, historically, Haiti was punished by France for what it had done to free slaves: Haiti was forced to compensate the heirs of slave traders for their 'loss of human cargo'.

As I have stated, I am a person with a learning difficulty. For all the laudable anti-discrimination legislation that the EU has helped bring to the UK, I have not as far as I am aware been helped while the global company ATOS has in effect murdered vulnerable people in its 'disability denial factories' that have apparently been based upon those of American-based insurance company Unum, formerly Unum-Provident. It was only through legal aid that has now been withdrawn that I won my case against ATOS and the Department for Work & Pensions so I got Employment & Support Allowance after having accrued only 17 months total waged employment from November 1977 to early 2009 when I first applied for ESA. [Swheatie forgot to add that apart from 1994 to 1997 at uni as a mature undergraduate, he had been on jobseeker benefits before claiming any disability benefit.]

And in 1978 an Employment Rehabilitation Centre 'Social Worker' told my parents that because I was slow, it would be a waste of public money for me to receive any further government-funded education and training, despite "an academic brain."

In conclusion, while TTIP talks about 'removing barriers to trade', the authors show remarkable ignorance surrounding how physical, economic and environmental barriers turn personal impairments into disabilities. I want more enforcement of existing human rights legislation rather than a charter for human rights abusers to increase the world's injustices in the name of 'free trade'.