frith_in_thorns: (Default)
Frith ([personal profile] frith_in_thorns) wrote2011-01-22 12:59 am

A moment of your time

On Monday I'm planning to go to a protest in London. If you're free then you might be interested in coming along too.

(I hate to beg, but: relevant friends in Oxford/London, please may I crash on someone's floor afterwards for the night, if it's not too much bother? The train connections I need to get all the way home in the evening are mostly absent, and it would be a massive help. I can compensate you!)

The protest is against the, quite frankly, evil cuts this government is making to Welfare for people with disabilities - among other things, stating that they have a target of reducing the people who are paid Disability Living Allowance (which is paid regardless of working status, and designed to reflect the additional costs to living associated with having a disability) by 20%. To stop paying Employment Maintainance Allowance after a year (because disabilities totally vanish when there's no money!). To remove mobility payments to people in care homes, meaning that many will become virtual prisioners - these payments are often used by care homes to, eg, fund an accesable minibus, and to provide wheelchairs. Cutting the respite care hours for families, including those where a child takes care of a parent.

None of these measures are going to solve the deficit. They are penny-pinching, and they are going completly against promises made by Cameron during his election campaining, and they are downright evil. They are going to kill people. (I'm not joking.)

You can read an article at The Guardian, here, which sums up the key points pretty neatly, and if you want more details on what specifically is affected, and how, you might like to read some of the posts on Where's The Benefit?, a blog set up in response. Or personal stories on how these cuts are going to have huge and horrible impacts on people on another related blog, One Month Before Heartbreak.

Here is the page with the information about Monday,. I'm nervous about going on my own (outside! in a big city! with strangers!), but to me, after having been following these blogs and reading about the planned cuts for months, I think I have to. This is important.

[identity profile] clwilson2006.livejournal.com 2011-01-22 04:44 am (UTC)(link)
I did not know about this protest, Thanks.

[identity profile] magicalsibylle.livejournal.com 2011-01-22 07:48 am (UTC)(link)
I so wish I could be here but I'm stuck in Paris. I'm so mad at them like you wouldn't believe. Strangely enough I'm more mad at Nick because a lot of my friends voted for him and are now crying. It's really hard to realize you've been betrayed when you put your full trust into someone.

Please shout twice as loud for me? Thank you thank you <33

[identity profile] magicalsibylle.livejournal.com 2011-01-22 02:34 pm (UTC)(link)
Unless you count 'Fuck You' as a suggestion, then not right now but I'm sure you'll find something witty :)
leesa_perrie: two cheetahs facing camera and cuddling (Laptop)

[personal profile] leesa_perrie 2011-01-22 01:12 pm (UTC)(link)
It sucks and I wish I could be there, but I'm just not feeling well enough atm. *annoyed*
leesa_perrie: two cheetahs facing camera and cuddling (Atlantis Night)

[personal profile] leesa_perrie 2011-01-22 03:27 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah, that is the problem really. Part of why the government thinks it can get away with it.

Photos would be cool, thanks!

[identity profile] truthliesmagic.livejournal.com 2011-01-23 08:54 am (UTC)(link)
If it wasn't for college, I would definitely be down there. My mum gets way less DLA than she deserves (and I say that without bias because she's my mother; she just honestly does not get enough) but for them to cut it completely?

There is not enough capslock and/or keysmashing in the world to convey my rage at Cameron and Clegg.