A means to an end

Published in July 17th, 2013
Posted by in Culture, Disability, Issues, Manchester
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Tweet The story of influential Manchester band Joy Division has been told to the point of exhaustion, right? So many books, including Hooky’s, two films in the shape of the excellent Control and Steve Coogan’s 24 Hour Party People, not to mention the myriad press coverage. But a play? Well, yes. Why not? The big […]

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BBC News redesign excludes the disabled

Published in July 14th, 2010
Posted by in Issues
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Tweet The BBC rolled out its new-look BBC News website redesign today amid much fanfare. It’s attracted a lot of comment, not just on the site itself but also across the media-reporting media. Taking out all the “if it ain’t broke, why fix it” remarks, of which there were very many, there still seemed to […]

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Disability Living Allowance – a personal experience

Published in June 24th, 2010
Posted by in Issues
32 Comments

Tweet Tuesday’s Budget contained the not-entirely-unexpected announcement of cuts to benefits. There was a general expectation that Incapacity Benefit (IB) and its new incarnation, Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), both of which are claimed by many disabled people, would be targeted. IB is frequently in the news for its renown as a benefit that is […]

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Blogging against disablism

Published in May 1st, 2009
Posted by in Blogging, Issues
213 Comments

Tweet Did you know that one in six people in the UK has a disability of some sort? No? Neither did I until quite recently. It’s a shocking statistic, not so much because of the figure of 17%, but because disability is so underreported that when it does make the press people’s life stories become […]

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Disability and diversity in the public space

Published in February 23rd, 2009
Posted by in Issues
5 Comments

Tweet One of today’s top stories has centred on children’s TV presenter, Cerrie Burnell. The Daily Mail ran an insidious, scaremongering feature about how she is supposedly frightening the young kids she presents to on CBeebies. Listening to Cerrie talk on the Jeremy Vine Show on Radio 2 today, I was struck by her calm […]

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How reporting can endanger the disabled

Published in August 2nd, 2008
Posted by in Journalism, News
1 Comment

Tweet Following Barry George’s acquittal for the murder of Jill Dando, today’s papers are awash with lengthy analysis of the case and profiles of George himself. My own opinion is that I think it highly unlikely that George “did it”, based on reports of his low IQ and other mental and physical problems. Why on […]

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