Making rights make sense

I don’t really want to write this blogpost. Or rather I do, but I want people to tell me all the reasons I’m wrong. I’ve been reading ‘The Wall’ by John Lanchester, a dystopian, yet all too real-seeming novel. Following ‘the change’, a catastrophic climate-related event, much of the world has become uninhabitable, leading to […]

Framing research has found that it is common for campaigners, in their communications, the media in their reporting, and the public in their thinking and understanding to omit the human-designed systemic factors shaping people’s life experiences and opportunities.   As a result, we can too often attribute people’s life situation, such as poverty, homelessness, or obesity, […]

The Down Syndrome Bill will have its Third Reading in the House of Lords on Friday.  Its keenest advocates will celebrate, and will no doubt make great claims about what it means, as no doubt will government Ministers.  Here are some facts. First up, the campaign has no doubt raised the profile of people with […]

A month ago, Mencap’s CEO Edel Harris issued a statement concerning the charity’s support for the Down Syndrome Bill.  The statement rejected suggestions made by people – myself included – that the Bill was connected to campaigns to reform abortion law.  Mencap dismissed these concerns, saying that the political affiliations of some involved had ‘fuelled […]

Independence is a word often used in conjunction with social care, albeit with quite different meanings.  When we talk about older people, we often hear that people should be supported to ‘live independently for as long as possible’ by which it is meant living outside of institutional care and in ways that minimise a person’s […]

Yesterday evening (26/1/22) I joined a ‘meeting’ organised by The National Down Syndrome Policy Group to discuss the Down Syndrome Bill (as amended), which passed Committee stage in the House of Commons yesterday morning.   It began with Liam Fox MP, flushed with success, regaling the assembled people with Down Syndrome, families and supporters with […]

(updated 2 February 2022) This post is about the right to abortion, the activities of the ‘National Down’s Syndrome Policy Group’ and the Downs Syndrome Bill, presently before the UK Parliament. I want to start by acknowledging how much hope some are investing in this Bill, and how others view it to be a building […]

Deep joy today watching this new lovely video of Jane talking about the value of Community Micro Enterprises offering care and support in Somerset.  That’s right, a person drawing on support telling her own story about the role of support to enable her to live the life she wants to lead. It shouldn’t be surprising […]

An edited version of a talk with Innovations in Dementia 14 October 2021 I want to put forward two interlinked propositions, which I hope won’t prove controversial, but which I don’t believe are firmly embedded in understanding and discourse, in policy or practice as they should be: People’s experience of dementia as a health condition […]

Some time ago, following a number of attacks on Jewish cemeteries, Greater Manchester Police launched a campaign to encourage Jewish people in the city to report anti-Semitic hate crimes. The campaign was a success. The following year, the annual statistics on police recorded hate crime for England were published, showing much higher levels of recorded […]