Crippen Cartoons cartoons at the cutting edge of disability

The Tory Christmas panto got off to a great start this week, seemingly totally unscripted with Richie Sunak as Widow Twanky ad libbing his way through Act one and opening with the statement that he would be scrapping the post of minister for disabled people …

(Oh no he isn’t! Oh yes, he is! … )

Talk about timing. Just days after the Covid public enquiry heard how disabled people were left without protection, written out of key investigations and proper consultation, and had their rights ignored by the UK government during the pandemic!

(Oh no they didn’t! Oh yes, they did!)

But wait. Act two commences with a NEW minister of disabled people being appointed, albeit being downgraded to a junior position in the form of Mims Davies who will be combining her new role with her existing job as the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) minister responsible for young people and social mobility.

(Oh no she isn’t! Oh yes, she is! … )

But what about her predecessor Uncle Tom Pursglove, I hear you ask?

(Oh no we didn’t … !)

Well, Tom has been invited to disappear up the magic bean stalk and join those other ex-ministers for disabled people, like Justin Tomlinson (who?!) Claire Coutinho, Mike Penning and Esther McVey (to name but a few) who are all chortling away about those naïve disabled people who expected them all to make a difference!

But hang on! Who’s this barging his way on stage at the start of Act three?

(He’s behind you!)

It’s none other than the chair of the Conservative Disability Group (CDG) Barry Ginley, who is not a happy bunny! In fact, he’s so furious that many of his members are considering tearing up their party memberships in protest at the decision to downgrade the importance of the role of minister for disabled people.

We’ve actually managed to get hold of a copy of his script where he says that he was “extremely angered and disappointed”, and he urged Sunak to reverse the decision “to ensure that our rights as the largest minority group in the UK are championed in parliament and Westminster”. He added that it was a “retrograde step diminishing the rights of disabled people to be effectively represented”.

Caught outside of the stage door by Disability News Service (DNS) Ace reporter John Pring he went a step further by adding that “the government does not hold disabled people’s interests at the heart of policy” and that it meant disabled people would now “not believe the government” when it announces any future policy which aims to improve their lives.

(Surely not?!)

Finally, taking centre stage with the other main characters of this end of year Tory production, Ms Davies said she was “honoured” by her appointment and would “work as hard as I can to ensure disabled people’s voices are heard loud and clear”.

(The cast now all exit stage left, high kicking and waving at the audience!)

BTW, there was further embarrassment for the government after DWP announced the appointment of Mims Davies through an inaccessible post on social media that failed to include “alt text”, which allows disabled people using screen-reading software to listen to a description of a picture.

Description of cartoon for those using screen reading software

The scene is a pantomime stage with Richie Sunak dressed in an outlandish ‘dame’ panto costume whilst alongside of him and dressed in polka dots and stripes is Mims Davies. Davies is holding a magic lamp which has a label attached to it which states that it’s the ‘poison chalice of disability’.  Behind them is a giant bean stalk which carries near its top pictures of previous ministers for disabled people; Tom Pursglove, Justin Tomlinson and Esther McVey. There is also a black cat sitting alongside Sunak. Sunak is saying: “And if you’re very good you get to climb the bean stalk with the other losers!” Davies is replying: “Er … thank you Sir (I think!)”

Let’s face it, Boris was a cartoonist’s dream. Not just the disheveled appearance but also the shambolic posturing whenever he was being confronted about the inconsistencies in his role as Prime Minister.

Looking back through the blogs I created over the past couple of years, over 50 of them were about Boris’ ham-fisted handling of the COVID pandemic. From the government sanctioned releasing of elderly hospital patients back into care homes without testing, to the blanket application of ‘Do not resuscitate’ notices to elderly and disabled people who were later admitted to hospital. This was compounded by the implementation of the Frailty Scoring System which allowed medical staff to decide who would receive treatment and who would not. No surprise when it became apparent that elderly and disabled patients fell into the ‘no treatment’ category just by being elderly or disabled!

Not content with these discriminative ‘recommendations’ Boris followed up with the Coronavirus Bill which resulted in freeing local authorities of social care support duties, effectively ripping up the 2014 Care Act and its sections 20 and 18 (duty to meet needs of disabled people and carers). Incidentally, does anyone know if this has now been repealed?

Coming back to the present time and watching Boris bluster his way through cross examination at the COVID Enquiry reinforced the fact that he seems utterly incapable of understanding graphs and basic statistical information. He also seemed unable to comprehend the point that if he’d commenced lock down earlier than he did, it could have meant locking down for less time and not, as he stated, let it go on too long for people to cope with! Without Dominic Cummings writing his script he seemed unable to understand most of the questions put too him nor accept that he was complicit in the deaths of thousands of people due to his incompetence.  

I’m looking forward to seeing what karma has in store for him!

Description of cartoon for those using screen reading software

Boris Johnson is standing in a circle of large stone slabs which he’s started to topple, creating a domino effect. The first slab that he’s pushed is identified as being the Coronavirus Bill, the second slab is The Care Act, the third slab is Section 20 etc. The slabs will continue to topple with the last slab identified as the COVID Enquiry 2023 which will fall onto him. On the floor at his feet is a piece of paper with ‘6 out of 10 COVID deaths were disabled people’.  Standing to one side is Demonic Cummings who is saying to him: “Perhaps we should factor in Karma before we get too carried away?!”

We can be forgiven for thinking that the Tory Party Manifesto has been influenced greatly by the likes of Iain Duncan Smith (IDS) having received a copy of the George Orwell novel ‘1984’ during his more formative years.

His Machiavellian influence on public health services and the subsequent crisis that has resulted due to his brutal and relentless assault on the integrity of claimants of long-term disability benefit(s) mirrors Orwell’s description on the consequences of totalitarianism, mass surveillance and repressive regimentation of people and behaviors within society.

For those of you unfamiliar with this dystopian novel which was published in 1949, it broadly examines the role of truth and facts within societies and the way in which they can be manipulated. The story takes place in an imagined future in an unspecified year believed to be 1984, where Great Britain has become a province of a totalitarian superstate. Led by ‘Big Brother’, a dictatorial leader supported by an intense cult of personality manufactured by the ‘Thought Police’, he instigates government surveillance  and, through the ‘Ministry of Truth’, historical negation-ism and constant propaganda that persecutes individuality and independent thought.

Back to the present where our very own Ministry of Truth has succeeded in convincing most of society that those on benefits, especially those benefits relating to disability and long-term illness, are work shy scroungers, depriving society of much needed revenue to support, for example the NHS. They continue to feed this rhetoric to the mainstream media who are only too happy to paint the chronically ill and disabled community as cheats and frauds.

What they fail to publish however, are the government’s recent figures that show disability benefit fraud was only at 0.5 percent, meaning that 99.5 per cent of disabled claimants who depend upon social security benefit for their financial and physical survival, are genuine. There is just no evidence of any significant fraud by the chronically ill and disabled community. They also fail to publish the fact that there has been a disturbing increase in prosecuted disability hate crimes fueled by the misinformation originating from these government sources.

You’ll recall also that Mo Stewart, Research Lead for the Preventable Harm Project, in her recent letter to IDS  takes him to task over his recent comments in the national press, where he urged the Government to get people languishing on disability and sickness benefit(s) back to work, thus indicating that his well-documented opinion of the chronically ill and disabled community who depend upon social security benefit for their very survival remains as hostile as ever.

The Department for Works and Pensions (DWP) is continuing to build upon its Big Brother reputation by proposing to use powers under a new bill currently going through Parliament. This will allow them full access to the bank accounts of all pension credit, universal credit and employment and support allowance claimants. Any bank failing to collect and pass on data to the DWP will be subject to heavy fines. It is estimated that almost 9 million claimants would be caught in this surveillance net with the DWP claiming that the new powers will result in 74,000 prosecution cases and 2,500 custodial sentences … but based upon what? Their own figures show that most of the money lost by DWP is due to their own incompetence and not by fraud!

As Black Triangle, the grassroots disabled people’s organisation run by and for disabled people stated: 

“Anyone who imagines that the DWP will use such sweeping powers reasonably and proportionately probably hasn’t ever claimed benefits … this is, beyond doubt, the thin end of a very thick wedge”.

The new system will begin to be rolled out in 2025, though all banks may not be fully involved before 2030.

Description of cartoon for those using screen reading software

An Asian wheelchair user has reached up to tear away the calendar page for December 2023. However, the new calendar page that is revealed is for January 1984. High on the wall behind him is a CCTV camera with the initials ‘DWP-TV printed on it. A large exclamation mark sits above the disabled person’s head.

It’s official, and it’s published in the Guardian. We can all now refer to the Tory Party and Iain Duncan Smith in particular as ‘Tory Scum’!

Lord Justice Popplewell said no fault in law was made by a senior district judge last November in finding Ruth Wood, 52, and Radical Haslam, 30, not guilty of using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour with intent. In fact the two protesters were “reasonable” in calling Iain Duncan Smith “Tory scum” outside the Conservative party conference, the high court has ruled, in a rejection of an attempt to overturn their acquittal. The Lord Justice added:

“The use of the term ‘Tory scum’ was to highlight the policies of Duncan Smith, which was relevant to the reasonableness of the conduct in relation to the rights of freedom of expression and assembly … criminalising the words ‘Tory scum’ would be a disproportionate interference in the two protesters’ rights”.

Tom Wainwright, a barrister at Garden Court Chambers representing Wood and Haslam, said the judgment represented an important defence of the right to freedom of expression.

“What this judgment confirms is that it is not for the defence to show that, but it is for the state to show that there is a good reason to restrict free speech and that a conviction is the only way that could be done.”

Wood and Haslam were outside the Midland hotel in Manchester, where the Conservative party annual conference was taking place in October 2021, when Duncan Smith, a former welfare secretary, emerged to walk to the Mercure hotel for a conference about Brexit.

As Duncan Smith crossed the road, an individual ran up behind him and placed a traffic cone on his head. The former Tory leader removed the traffic cone, called the protesters “pathetic” and continued on his way.

Haslam and Wood had followed Duncan Smith from a short distance. They separately called him “Tory scum”. Wood added: “Fuck off out of Manchester.”

Wood defended her comments on the grounds that her job working with homeless people in her local community meant she felt very strongly about the impact that Conservative party policies were having on people’s lives.

Their comments came after Labour’s deputy leader, Angela Rayner, had been recorded at her party’s conference describing the Conservatives as “homophobic, racist, misogynistic … scum”.

Description of cartoon for those using screen reading software

Sir Iain Duncan Smith (IDS) MP and Rishi Sunak PM are standing side by side. IDS is holding a piece of card with the word SCUM printed upon it. On the floor is a newspaper with the headline: ‘High Court rules that Iain Duncan Smith can be called SCUM!’. Sunac is saying, whilst pointing at IDS: “This senior conservative is an unrelenting minister – the embodiment of the Tory party in every way” (The first letter of Senior, Conservative, unrelenting and minister are capitalised and coloured red spelling out SCUM).

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Having been told on several occasions that as I’m clinically extremely vulnerable (CEV) to the Covid virus, I must wear a face mask whenever I have to mingle with strangers. For example, when shopping or going to the hospital. On these occasions I often get funny looks as I’m usually the only one wearing a mask, and on a couple of occasions have even been asked why I’m wearing one!

The consensus seems to be that the Covid pandemic is over and that we can go back to “being normal”, despite several friends and acquaintances of mine recently testing positive. Even at the hospital, the notices about always wearing a mask etc., when attending for an appointment have all been taken down. There are some nursing staff who do wear a mask, but the ones I saw the other day were wearing them under their chin!

I got chatting to one of the medical team and asked, as a CEV patient, why weren’t they wearing a mask when near me?

“Oh, we don’t have to worry about that anymore” was her breezy response.

I then asked if they were still taking weekly lateral flow tests?

“Er … well, I don’t and I’m not sure about my colleagues.” She said.

She clearly didn’t want me to continue this conversation so excused herself and walked off. I then saw her in a huddle with two other colleagues, one of whom looked across at me, then guiltily looking away. I could almost see them getting the ‘troublesome patient’ label ready for me.

Whilst waiting for my turn to see the consultant I took a quick look at my smart phone to see if there were any guidelines that still applied to hospitals and the continuing Covid situation. It seems that when the government ran its infamous Cygnus exercise (war gaming what their response should be if the country was hit by a pandemic) they failed to consider people who might be particularly vulnerable during such a scenario. The government and NHS eventually picked up on this political hot potato when Covid hit, but only after returning a lot of infected CEV patients back to care homes and nursing establishments. And we all know what happened then!

The ruling now seems to be that CEV people should take personal responsibility for protecting themselves against catching Covid, although all four nations of the UK have issued different public health guidance in different ways and at different points in time. One thing is consistent though, Covid is still the main cause of death, especially among older and disabled people.

The government seem particularly wary now about allowing this issue to resurface, especially as they could soon be facing a general election. And this is despite a recent poll showing that the support group Clinically Vulnerable Families found that 69% of CEV and CV people had cancelled medical appointments due to concerns over the lack of Covid precautions; 80% said that this was having an impact on their physical health.

You would have thought that the government had learned its lesson with hundreds of thousands of people dying since the emergence of Covid back in January 2020 … But I forgot, those in power just regard us all as acceptable collateral damage and just don’t give a toss!

Description: An Asian doctor is standing in front of a wheelchair user who is wearing a face mask. He is saying: “You do realise that by wearing a mask people will think we’ve not got Covid under control!” 

I have recently been shown a letter addressed to Sir Iain Duncan Smith MP, former Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (2010-16) from Mo Stewart – Fellow, Centre for Welfare Reform and the Research Lead for the Preventable Harm Project (2009 – 2019) with the letter content identifying a recently published research paper – ‘The public health crisis created by UK social policy reforms’

In this letter Mo pulls no punches as she reacquaints the Right Honourable gentleman with recent research that identifies the well documented public health crisis created by the adoption of various social policy reforms, mainly instigated by him during his term in office.

She also takes him to task over his recent comments in the national press, where he urged the Government to get people languishing on sickness benefit back to work, thus indicating that his well-documented opinion of the chronically ill and disabled community who depend upon social security benefit for their financial and physical survival remains as hostile as ever.

Mo further accuses him of disregarding the volumes of published peer-reviewed research which identifies the public health crisis created by the reforms when using a fatally flawed assessment model to limit access to disability benefit. Also, his apparent disregard of the often-fatal human consequences and the disturbing increase in prosecuted disability hate crimes since he introduced these welfare reforms.  

She claims that his brutal and relentless assault on the integrity of claimants of long-term disability benefit(s) was in reality the creation of social re-engineering to remove the past psychological security of the welfare state when aided by the tabloid press. Something that worked only too well as the public is left with the wrongful impression that all people on disability benefits are work shy scroungers. Despite there being no evidence of any significant fraud by the chronically ill and disabled community. Indeed, according to the government’s own recently published figures, disability benefit fraud was only 0.5 percent, meaning that 99.5 per cent of claimants are not fraudulent.

She points out to him that we now have a situation where chronically ill and disabled people live in fear of the DWP. Someone surviving with end stage emphysema, for example, doesn’t wake up every day thinking about how much more benefit they can claim from the DWP. They are much more likely to wonder if this is to be their last day on earth.

Mo ends her letter by strongly suggesting that this relentless persecution must end connected as it is to many thousands of suicides linked to DWP hostility and intimidation found in most written DWP communication with claimants.

I wouldn’t hold your breath waiting for a reply Mo!

Description of cartoon

Sir Iain Duncan Smith MP is standing in the House of Lords holding an open letter in his hand. A voice calls to him asking: “Did you see the letter in this morning’s post from Mo Stewart Sir Iain?”. His expression is stressed as he replies: “Oh shit – she’s noticed that the persecution of disabled claimants only started when I took charge of the DWP!”

“Oh, here he goes again!” is the usual response, usually from non-disabled people whenever I bring up the subject of how the Tory government have been targeting disabled people and often using us as a scapegoat for their own incompetence.  

Whenever I create a cartoon or blog about these issues, like for example that after more than a decade of austerity, the Tory’s continue to reduce its health and social care spending in real terms, leading to tens of thousands of excess deaths, many of them being disabled people, they sigh and give me a condescending pat on the head. Some even go to the lengths of pointing out the error of my ways and muttering about if only disabled people would try a bit harder and not be such a drain on the country’s resources. Or as one person put it, after reading my blog about disability hate crime, “we often only have ourselves to blame!”  

So, when I mentioned that the Tories once again seem to be on a drive to rehabilitate their image for the upcoming general election by being seen to be tough on benefit scroungers along with its continued hostile rhetoric towards disabled people resulting in an increase in disability hate crime, this is no doubt seen as yet another example of my paranoia?!

If so, what about their refusal to give evidence on its progress since being found guilty of “grave and systematic violations” of the UN’s disability convention seven years ago. Is that not yet another example of showing contempt for disabled people?

And let’s not forget the Work Capability Assessment (WCA), the system that is used to assess a person’s eligibility for sickness benefits, which has long been criticised as demeaning, arbitrary and not fit for purpose. Or, as a recent report by the campaign group We Are Spartacus described it as being essentially abusive, demeaning and cruel!

How does it go? “Just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean that they’re not out to get me”.

The UK government has been accused of showing contempt for disabled people after it refused to give evidence on its progress since being found guilty of grave and systematic violations of the UN’s disability convention seven years ago.

The government has told the UN committee that monitors implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities that it does not want to be examined in public on its progress!

A UN committee of disabled human rights experts found in November 2016 that the UK government had discriminated against disabled people on the right to an adequate standard of living and social protection, work and employment, and independent living. Most of those breaches were caused by policies introduced by Conservative ministers at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

The 2016 findings were the result of the first high-level inquiry ever carried out by the UN’s committee on the rights of persons with disabilities (CRPD), which followed years of research and lobbying in the UK mainly by Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC).

The committee had put aside a day in August to examine the government’s progress in implementing the recommendations over the last seven years. But the UK government backed out of attending the session in Geneva which took place on 28th August and says it will not give its evidence until next March.

Representatives of Deaf and Disabled People’s Organisations (DDPO’s) – and four UK human rights and equality bodies – attended the session in Geneva to give their evidence, presenting a “shadow” report on the government’s progress since the 2016 report. However, it now looks that they will also have to fund a second trip in March 2024.

CRPD confirmed this week that the “interaction between the State party and the Committee” had been postponed, but it declined to comment on the UK government’s decision.

Ellen Clifford, a disabled activist who has been working on the DDPO shadow report for the coalition, said:

“It is not surprising that the government has chosen not to participate in the special inquiry follow-up this year given that their treatment of Deaf and disabled people is publicly indefensible. They are consciously breaching and ignoring substantive obligations under the convention and there is clear evidence of further retrogression.”

She added that:

“I believe the government is scared of the bad publicity at a time when they are in a weakened position with continuing industrial disputes and unhappiness due to the cost-of-living crisis and had hoped to avoid further critical scrutiny and bad press through attempting to postpone the session. This decision showed contempt for the efforts that disabled people and their organisations have put into preparing for the evidence session.”

As for Tom Pursglove, the alleged Minister for Disabled people, not a word has been heard from his office. One could be forgiven for thinking that the statement from the government that ‘it does not want to be examined in public on its progress’ might well have originated from him!

Read more about this latest government shambles in Disability News Service.

Who’d have guessed it, but the cosy relationship between the Department of Works and Pensions (DWP) and Atos, the French company who were given the contract to assess benefits claimants, has come to an end after almost 20 years.

You’ll recall that Atos were responsible for rejecting thousands of benefits claims, in particular those submitted by disabled people in the UK. They had also been blamed for countless deaths in connection with the WCA process, and for dishonest reports written by many of its PIP assessors.

Instead, the DWP have awarded contracts estimated as being worth over two billion pounds over the five years from 2024 to 2029, to other contractors. These include the multinational Serco who have been awarded a £338 million contract to cover claims in the Southwest of England.

You can read more about this latest DWP fiasco in Disability News Service (DNS) who also revealed why the Minister for disabled people, Tom Pursglove failed to reveal the winner of the south-west contract. And, why it’s now gone to court.

Looks like that’s another fine mess they’ve got themselves into!

Description of cartoon for those using screen reading software

A DWP Civil Servant is stood in the middle of the room where tendering for DWP benefits assessments are made. He is holding a large piece of paper on which is written ‘£2 billion in contracts’. On one side of him are two people representing Serco. They are holding a contract worth £338 million for benefit assessments. On the other side are two people representing Atos. They have no contract. The civil servant is saying to the Atos team: ”On the bad side you were responsible for the deaths of many disabled claimants … AND your staff told lies!” The Atos representative replies: “Ah yes – but on the good side we were the ones who rejected more claims than you had set the target for!” … “AND we’ve still got all of the evidence!”