Published by The Times (30th April, 2024) There is a valid debate to be had over disability benefits after a sudden surge in claimants with anxiety and depression. […]
Disability / Health / Policy / Social care
Britain’s sordid human rights scandal
Published by The i paper (25th March, 2024) During my journalistic career I have spoken to traumatised people around the world suffering terrible consequences of war, earthquakes and […]
Canada / Disability / Europe / Health / Holland / Policy / World
Why I believe Dame Esther is profoundly wrong on assisted dying
Published by The Daily Mail (22nd December, 2023) Calls for a change in the law relating to assisted dying rose to a crescendo this week. Yesterday Labour leader […]
Disability / Housing / Policy / Politics
How can a Labour MP block flats for people with learning disabilities?
Published by The i paper (13th November, 2023) In a Westminster world stuffed with ambitious party hacks and entitled creeps who see compassion as a dirty word, the […]
Covid19 / Disability / Health / Policy
Contempt for ordinary people in the corridors of power
Published by The i paper (6th November, 2023) The Covid inquiry last week performed an invaluable service. It seemed as if we were watching a savage new political satire […]
Disability / Health / Policy / Social care
A grotesque denial of human rights is dragging on
Published by The Times (7th August, 2023) When Franco Basaglia took over a huge asylum in Trieste in 1971, the charismatic psychiatrist found a place that felt like […]
Disability / Europe / Health / Holland / Policy
Euthanasia is a slippery slope
Published by The i paper (17th April, 2023) There are few more sensitive political issues than legalisation of euthanasia. On one hand we hear emotive pleas from patients […]
Disability / Europe / Russia / Ukraine
People with disabilities abandoned in Ukraine
Published by The i paper (4th April, 2022) It is almost six weeks since Vladimir Putin unleashed hell on Ukraine. His forces have pulverised cities, shattered communities and […]
Disability / Health / Policy
A stealthy new age of eugenics
Published by The i paper (27th September, 2021) Heidi Crowter is 26 years old, married last year and is full of life. She loves music and follows Liverpool […]
Disability / Health / Policy
We have failed people with autism
Published by The i paper (31st May, 2021) Dannielle Attree has spent half of her life being subjected to state-sanctioned abuse. She is only 24 years old but […]
Covid19 / Disability
The inhumanity of deeming some lives ‘more valuable’ than others
Published by The Daily Mail (19th January, 2021) Deborah James is a deputy head teacher, a mother of two children and, since her devastating diagnosis with bowel cancer, […]
Covid19 / Disability / Policy / Social care
Britain is callously indifferent to disabled people
Published by The Daily Telegraph (16th January, 2021) When I asked my doughty friend, a working mum on the other side of London, how she was bearing up […]