Spartacus Report gives disabled people a voice at the eleventh hour

#SPARTACUSREPORT Press Release


#SPARTACUS REPORT into proposed Disability Reform


Twibbon to support #Spartacusreport


The voices of those seeking to tip the genuinely sick over the precipice and down into the pit of contempt where human compassion and reason cannot penetrate, reached a deafening pitch long ago. Voices of politicians, tabloids, journalists, the media, even some less perceptive or cannily duped members of the public, clamoured to misidentify the 0.5% of benefit cheats with the 99.5% who have done nothing wrong but fall prey to illnesses that come as part and parcel with inhabiting the human body. These unfounded, murderous opinions have taken over the airwaves like white noise. Too long the truth about disability reform, told from the inside by disabled people themselves, has been drowned out.

But we are still here. With our complicated, messy lives, inevitably filled with fluctuating agonies, or mental illness, invisible suffering, lifelong and degenerative diseases. Plus our added struggles to access transport, public facilities, our careers, our friends and families, housing, mobility. We are still here, and the Spartacus Report, a clear, reasonable, passionate voice for all disabled people, is now here too.

At long last, at the eleventh hour, days before the final votes drag the Welfare Reform Bill, blindfolded, gagged and weeping at its own unfitness for purpose, through Parliament, we have found our voice. The Spartacus Report, funded, tweeted, shared, compiled, publicised, emailed, sent, advocated entirely by disabled people with the few energy "spoons" and fragments of healthy moments they have. Launched yesterday by the concerted efforts of a huge section of disabled voters with access to social media. Now backed by charities, celebrities, councillors, medics, along with so many disabled people and their carers and supporters who know this desperately needed Spartacus Report speaks for them as nothing else has been allowed to do in the current climate.

If time and spoons are scarce, please at least read and share the shorter press release on the link above, if it speaks for you too. Wear the publicity twibbon on your profile, as I am proud to do. If you can, share the full report to all who will listen, to help them hear the truth. It is entirely possible that the person you reach with the report may never have heard the full truth before. The government certainly hopes so. They have pulled out every stop to make sure the facts uncovered here about widespread opposition to their WRB proposals never come to light.

Or if, like I might once have done, you cockily think you will never need such a voice, because you are well, working hard, thriving and with a level playing field before you, think again. Disability is no respecter of persons. Neither is the system being put in place, dismantled, tinkered with and made a monster of; if the WRB goes ahead, we will all be at the mercy of its vicious disregard for human need in the years to come.

Spartacus was a famous leader in Roman times who headed an uprising of oppressed people, fighting for their freedom against a slave-owning oligarchy. We disabled people of the 21st century in the UK have no desire for violence, hatred, war, vitriol or physical weapons. Personally, I believe our armoury lies in reasoned argument, shared hope and encouragement, patience, resilience, persistence, humour, a holding onto the truth and a call to the deepest wells of the human spirit, that no regime relying on greed or propaganda can ever wholly crush.

I support the spirited, truthful voice of the Spartacus Report.
If you do too, please don't hesitate to show the world you too are breaking the silence with a voice that can no longer be ignored.

Blessings to you and yours.