Crippen Cartoons cartoons at the cutting edge of disability

Sorry, but I’ve got my cynical head on again (Ed: What’s new?!), and I can’t help thinking that there’s another agenda running along with this government and its future plans for disabled people.  

We’re all aware of just how hard it has been to get where we are today; the long, hard struggle to break out of those institutions that kept us segregated from the rest of society and the fight we had after identifying the many barriers that existed to disable us. And then fighting for accessible transport, accessible housing and access to an inclusive education and employment.

We’d not completely succeeded, but at least we were moving things in the right direction with the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) and our own Disability Rights Commission (DRC). That was until this government came into power and started to pull apart this legislation followed by further dismantling of education and care provision at the outbreak of the Covid pandemic. And now, as I mentioned in my last Blog, we’ve got their complete disregard for accessible housing.

It seems obvious to me that ‘they’ want us all off the streets again and back into the homes and institutions that kept us out of their hair. It was certainly cheaper for them to have us ‘cared for’ by the many charities that existed for this very purpose. No more worrying about finding money for accessible transport, inclusive education, access to work etc.

It’s all so insidious that you can be forgiven for not having joined up the dots yet. But things are only going to get worse for us and that, if we don’t start to do something more proactive, we could soon reach the point of no return.

Description of cartoon for those using screen reading software

A young female wheelchair user is outside the front door of a supposedly new accessible house. A sign alongside of it states: ‘conservative party – fully accessible housing’. However, this is a façade, as behind it is a large grey building with bars on the windows. A large sign proclaiming ‘compulsory residential living unit for disabled’ is fastened above its entrance. On the grass outside of the institution a fire is burning inside of a metal dustbin. Several documents identified as ‘accessible transport provision’ and ‘accessible housing provision’ and also ‘inclusive education’ are all being burnt. A white male in a suit and tie is saying to the young disabled person: “welcome to your long awaited fully accessible new home!”