On 9th April 2008 I blogged Sick Note Britain – What Disabled People are Sick Of in response to Peter Hain’s Sick Note Britain. Sick notes were compiled by disabled members of Brent Advocacy Concerns who later turned them into the film, ‘Sick Bucket’
Peter Hain was a labour politician with his eyes on the prize of welfare reform. His views were replicated by a certain David Cameron under the guise of Broken Britain. Cameron took Frank Field’s (Labour MP) views on Universal Credit on board and with the support of the malingerers at the Department of Work and Pensions set about dispatching the lives of 10,000 plus Disabled People (as supposedly reported in Hansard)
Very soon after Hain’s vision statement DAN the Disabled People’s Network halted traffic in Whitehall and started handing out DAN’s Sick Note. See Action Against Welfare Reform
Back then the Tories clearly sent out a message that they were out to get Disabled People, Single Mothers and Mental Health Service Users and given their genocidal approach were very good at getting us gone.
So, why the history lesson. 1) Only last week I was marveling at Dave Lupton’s the Blame Game (see below) – a cartoon that looks at the way politicians pejoratively label Disabled People, cajole the media into dehumanising us further by stoking up the public’s ire particularly just before an election and credit where credit is due only today… 2) Rishi Sunak is deliberating on consulting over the removal of PIP Personal Independence Payment with a view to particularly targeting the Mental Ill on the grounds that its hard to justify their need for extra living costs in comparison to physically disabled people so here we go again (and really who can we trust on this issue).
Dave Lupton’s work can be viewed here at https://crippencartoons.com/ Look out for his merch.
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