I sometimes wonder if it’s worth taking a break, especially when you come back to an overflowing in-box! Not that I’m complaining. It’s always good to have work coming in on a regular basis (hint!).
Those of you on my monthly newsletter will have already heard about my successful setting up of both my new book store and also the distribution system for sales. My first book ‘Crippen – And the COVID years’ is now online and can be found here.
I’m also almost ready to publish the second book in the series ‘Crippen – And the DWP’ which I’m hoping to get online next week. As you can imagine our old nemesis Iain Duncan Smith featurers widely.
Hopefully, I can get back into my regular weekly blogs next week as well. I’m just having to create a whole new raft of political characters to replace those Tory bastards who have made most of our lives a complete misery. They’re all going to have to find a new hobby, perhaps pulling the wings off butterfly’s?!
(Apologies to those who get the monthly newsletter as I repeat myself here!)
I’ve just spent a couple of days in Dublin catching up with friends and enjoying the craic as they say. We got to talking about the situation in Ireland as opposed to our own regarding the progress made by disabled people in challenging the status quo.
We soon discovered that there wasn’t much difference; the various charities that claim to represent them and the organisations run and controlled by non-disabled people are still the main recipients of any funding that’s going. The only real difference was that the Catholic church seems to have its fingers in a great deal of the charitable giving over there, with very little being given to those Crips who are trying to self-organise.
I seemed to spend a lot of the time explaining about the Social Model under- standing of disability and how this had made a real difference in the UK. It shouldn’t have surprised me, as I still come across many disabled people in the UK who are unfamiliar with the concept.
This is one of the reasons that I continue to reiterate the social model message in my ongoing work, despite criticism from those ‘enlightened’ Crips who say that we should be moving on. It’s a simple explanation and one which has enabled thousands of disabled people the opportunity to empower themselves and challenge the medical and charitable models imposed on them by society.
One response that I had from the newsletter was from our friend, disabled researcher and activist Mo Stewart. She suggested:
“There is a very good reason why many disabled people have never heard of the ‘social model’ of disability, and that included me when I first started the research.
“Models of disability are not a common subject in everyday life and to learn about the ‘social model’ usually means you need to be involved somehow with the disabled community either online or with a local support group.
“Most disabled people are not, hence there are many who do not know about the ‘social model’ which is still misinterpreted by many but was the reason Aylward was able to produce research which disregarded clinical need as being the basis for the WCA.”
I’d be interested to hear what your thoughts are about the value of still using the Social Model Understanding of Disability as a part of our continued struggle?
Please leave your thoughts in the ‘Comments’ section of the Blog. Thanks.
Description of cartoon for those using screen reading software
The scene is a corridor with a facing door. The door has a frosted glass top upon which is printed: ‘Minister for Disabled people’. The top half of the wall and the door have been painted Labour red, leaving the bottom half still Tory blue. A paint tin with the label ‘Labour Party Red’ printed upon it, and also a paint brush loaded with red paint is adjacent the door. Hanging on the door handle is also a large sign that reads: ‘Under New Management’. On the floor is a newspaper with the headline ‘Labour win landslide victory!’. The door is surrounded by floating question marks.
Crippen Cartoons 