LABOUR GET REAL ON DISABILITY!!

Well! Well! Look what just landed in my inbox!!! Are Labour finally getting real on sickness and disability? This is VERY important. We've been calling for a cumulative impact assessment for some time. If you want to know why it's important that government look at how ALL the cuts COMBINED will affect disabled people, please read this article I wrote for #Occupy http://diaryofabenefitscrounger.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/what-is-overall-impact-of-cuts-to.html (reproduced in full at the end of this post)

Please do try to write to your MP and use the hashtag #makerightsreality on twitter to build pressure before the debate at 16:00 on Wednesday 10th July.

Maybe, just maybe all the meetings and emails and campaigning are getting through. Don't let cynicism stop you from getting involved, things WILL get better one day, We always have to keep believing that this will be the day.

Email from Liam Byrne : 

"Time to come clean

After more than three years in power, it’s time for this Government to finally come clean and tell us exactly what impact their changes will have on the lives of disabled people and their carers.

So on Wednesday 10 July, Labour will drag Ministers to the House of Commons to debate the changes they have made that affect disabled people, and at about 16:00 we will force a vote to demand a Cumulative Impact Assessment by October 2013 at the latest - and we will be calling on MPs from across the House to support it.

I am asking supporters to help build pressure on the government in three ways:

Write to your MP and ask them to back the motion
Write to your local paper and explain why we urgently need a cumulative impact assessment
Tweet your support using #MakeRightsReality – here’s the link to the motion (http://liambyrne.co.uk/?p=4534)

This government is failing to support our disabled people. It’s time for Ministers to come clean, admit where they are getting things wrong and change course.

It’s time to start making rights a reality for disabled people.

Please forward this email to anyone who might be interested.

Here’s the motion in full:

That this House believes that the Government should publish a cumulative impact assessment of the changes made by this Government that affect disabled people (to be published by October 2013).

Yours,

Liam Byrne"

Here is the full text of my article on why we're calling for a cumulative impact assessment. Teh government have simply told us over and over that "They can't afford it" or "It would be too difficult" (I'm not kidding!) 

"This is a piece I wrote for Occupied Times, and they have kindly said I can re-produce it here :


"To do his schoolwork, the bare minimum Johnny needs is: paper, a pen, a teacher, a school, a chair to sit on, a desk to sit at, and a packed lunch.

If you take away just Johnny’s lunch, he will go hungry. It would be almost impossible for him to concentrate and do well in school. However, in theory, he could still do schoolwork.

If you just took away his desk, it would make it tricky to write, but Johnny could still do his schoolwork. It would just take longer and be less neat.

If you just took away his teacher, he could, in theory, go to libraries and museums to learn. In theory. Hypothetically, it’s still possible that he could teach himself something, so he could still do his schoolwork.


If you take away his paper and pen and school all at once, he can still sit on the floor and use chalk to write on the ground.

But if you take away Johnny’s paper, pen, teacher, school, chair, desk and lunch, all at once, Johnny is sitting on some ground with nothing, hungry, without a roof over his head. It’s hard to learn anything at all sitting alone, on the ground, with nothing but a piece of chalk.

Now imagine you have a disability or a long-term chronic illness. To manage it with a degree of dignity, you need a carer, a roof over your head, a bed, heating, food and transport. You rely on the carer, who comes in twice a day from social services, because she helps you to get up and get dressed and washed. Without her, you would have to spend all day, every day in bed. But at least you still have a bed.

Or maybe you rely on housing benefit to keep a roof over your head. You are forced to move to a smaller property on the 5th floor of a tower block when your housing benefit is cut. The lift doesn’t work. It means you have to move away from family and friends who help you out whenever they can. They cook meals perhaps, or help with all those jobs around the house you just can’t do.

But at least you still have somewhere to live.

Or maybe you rely on Disability Living Allowance (DLA) for transport. It means you can get a taxi to the hairdresser or social club. Without it, you would become isolated. It would be impossible to get to your GP or make hospital appointments.

But, in theory at least, you don’t actually need to go anywhere.

If, however, you cut Disability Living Allowance, housing benefits, social care, hospital budgets, the Independent Living Fund, Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), income support and the Social Fund, then you are just lying in a bed, hungry and isolated, a prisoner in someone else’s home.

Governments must perform what is called an “impact assessment” on any new policy or law. This government has done the bare minimum to fulfil this commitment. Would it surprise you to know, for instance, that when considering the greatest cuts to disability support in living memory, they claim that they will have no impact on health, no impact on well-being, no impact on human rights, and no impact on the justice system?

The crucial flaw is that they have independently assessed each cut to the services disabled people rely on, as if it existed in a vacuum.

The government has refused to do an overall impact assessment. They have repeatedly refused to assess what the combined impact of their cuts will be. First they said it would be too expensive, then they said it would be too difficult!

Why might it be too difficult? Because they know, as we know, that, metaphorically speaking, the result will be little Johnny sitting on the floor with nothing but a piece of chalk, hungry, without a roof over his head.

The combined impact of removing someone’s DLA so they can no longer afford care or transport, heating or food, cutting their ESA so that they must look for work with cancer or multiple sclerosis, cutting their local care support so that they cannot clean themselves or feed themselves, cutting their housing support so that they risk homelessness and, to cap it all, scrapping the Social Fund so that there is no safety net when all else fails, is a strategy so risky that it ought to be criminalised.

We call upon the government to immediately carry out an overall impact assessment of all the cuts to the support that sick and disabled people rely on to live. I’ll say it again – to live. And they must do it now, before it’s too late. Because it’s hard to survive, sitting in the dirt with nothing but a piece of chalk."

Glastonbury Gas Gas Gas! Part 2

Friday morning dawned cloudy but dry. After just a few hours sleep, adrenaline made sure I woke zinging and popping with excitement. I would be speaking on a stage at Glastonbury in less than two hours! The camper van was cosy - it even had a fridge, but we hadn't worked out how to do tea yet and a spoonie with no tea (well this spoonie) is like Cameron without his botox - just a facade.

The green room, a huge white marquee with red carpet, elegant drapes of red curtain and twinkly fairy lights was just across a bit of muddy field, so Dave and I set off nervously to hunt beverages. As we stepped out of the van, we practically fell over Tom Watson and a friend trying to put a tent up. I've met Tom a few times and he's always been lovely, but somehow, grappling with tent pegs is a great leveller. We traded tent-banter with the comparative smugness of those sleeping several inches off the floor and carried on towards the promise of tea. (Half an hour later, as we returned to the van, very little tent progress had been made and instructions had finally been resorted to!)

Inside the green room, there was indeed free tea, coffee, juice and fruit. The tables were strewn with packs of cards and chess boards for whiling away the hours between appearances. Owen Jones was sitting outside and a few journalists were hopping from guest to guest interviewing panellists and musicians. Caroline Lucas came and sat with us for a while as I puffed nervously on a last minute cigarette. As though it was the most normal thing in the world, I suddenly found myself hugged by Billy Bragg. Billy Bragg!! A hero of mine for so many years.

Before I knew it, we were negotiating the cables and boxes backstage to emerge into the Leftfield audience. One of the backstage guys rushed to get me a box so that I could get onto the stage and the comfy leather sofas waiting for us.

The subject of the debate was "Austerity" and Owen kicked off with his usual brand of passionate, evidence based opposition. John Robb, punk hero, was chairing as John Humphreys had been held up in London covering Mandela. Tom Watson went next. Poor Tom had the trickiest job. He tried valiantly to walk a party line whilst still opposing the Tory horrors ripping the country apart, but he seemed weary, unconvinced himself. As the audience and panellists alike urged more emphatic  opposition from Labour, Tom stuck to the cautious party line, but somehow I felt, with little conviction.

As my turn came to speak, I asked the audience to think for a moment about a group of people who are not allowed to use the front doors of 5 star hotels, but are made to use the tradesman's entrance. A group who may not eat in the same restaurants as them or travel on the same transport. Children who may not attend the same schools as theirs or enjoy the same theatres or cinemas. No, I wasn't talking about race segregation in 1950s Alabama but the lives of sick and disabled people in the 21st century, right here in the UK, right now. I asked them to look around the tent. How many wheelchairs or guide dogs did they see? How many had they seen elsewhere on the vast site? I warned them that they would see fewer and fewer as the government's austerity bit harder. That austerity was very real for some. Sick and disabled people would increasingly find themselves stuck within four walls, their only incomes stripped away. Who can attend Glastonbury if their only means of transport is taken away? Who could afford the tickets if just putting food on the table becomes an impossible challenge? Finally, I begged them to open their eyes and see what was being done in their name and if it sickened them, to DO something about it. Very British tutting would not be enough.

I got a resounding round of applause and took my first breath for about half an hour. The debate fizzed along nicely, with Tom Watson and Caroline Lucas arguing over how firmly Labour should oppose austerity and Owen chipping in with eye-watering stats and research. We took questions from the floor and most of them lamented the lack of a credible opposition when we need it so desperately. However, this was Glastonbury, not Westminster and one might expect the audience (particularly one who chose Leftfield over beer and beats) to be to the left of even a distinctly leftie panel.

After taking questions from the floor,  it was all over, the quickest hour or so of my life. Audience members mobbed us at the end to share congratulations or advice and Dave pushed his way through with my wheelchair to lead me away. (Incidentally, as we made our way back to the van, Tom's tent still wasn't fully up....)

I was buzzing with adrenaline and ravenously hungry - I hadn't dared eat before the debate in case the ghost of crohn's present reared it's head, making me vomit all over the audience. It was gone 4pm, the sun was peeking out from ever smaller clouds and beats from every stage took over heartbeats with their intensity. I squealed at Dave "Let's find some fun!!!!"

We decided alcohol was a necessity and Dave went back to the van to get me Pimms (I'd bought cucumber and a mint plant with me - I really don't do slumming it) I asked him to "park" me just outside Leftfield stage so that I could watch the kaleidoscope of humanity milling past. I love people watching anywhere but this was a whole new level. Wild outfits, incongruous hats, hair every colour of the rainbow, Grandmas and babies, Dad's in anoraks and self-conscious teens, too cool, yet not quite cool enough. As I sat in the sun, making a "cigarette" Billy Bragg marched towards me, all smiles and hugs. Had I had fun? Did I enjoy the debate? Still buzzing, I said it was wonderful and such an opportunity to reach a new audience. We chatted for a while, then he asked if I'd like to speak again the next day, this time on a panel with union leaders and Ricky Tomlinson. Thrilled, I said I'd love to and he strode of to his next session.

Dave soon came back with a carrier bag stuffed with Pimms and lemonade, beer and a real glass with slices of cucumber and scrunched up mint - he knows me so well. People smiled as we pushed our way through crowds, my grown-up drink spilling here and there over bumpy walkways.

We decided not to have a "plan" but just to meander from stage to stage and see whatever was on. It was surprisingly easy to get around in the wheelchair as walkways had been levelled with miles and miles of makeshift flooring. We trundled towards the Other Stage and Dave wheeled me up a ramp to the viewing platform.

I'd never been to this kind of event in a wheelchair before, but far from feeling like defeat, it felt like liberation!! We weren't restricted by how far I could shuffle on foot, there were no tears as I found I couldn't get back from a distant field. We didn't have to find somewhere I could sit amongst boisterous crowds when it all got too much. Every stage we approached had a viewing platform with a ramp and we simply rolled up onto them! They were close enough to have a decent view and there was always space and a friendly security person to help.

But the best thing about the whole weekend for me - I'm not kidding - were the sign language interpreters signing the lyrics of the songs. On every viewing platform, they danced joyously, wrapped up in the music, the signing gave their dance so much more power, as though every bit of them went into the song. I filled up with tears as they signed for a guy in a wheelchair who had totally lost himself in the music. He may not have been able to hear what I heard, but these interpreters danced just for him, and he thrashed his head in time to the beats, hair whipping back and forth. It was beautiful to watch.

We managed three stages in as many hours - I'm fairly certain even those with no impairments would have struggled to see so much. Don't ask me who we saw - they were all lovely. I did get the  name of one band, the Dub Pistols on the BBC introducing stage. LOVED them.

We meandered around in the sunshine, ate some thai curry noodles (they were delicious, none of your crappy food stand nightmares at Glastonbury) drank, smoked and were merry.

It's worth pointing out at this point that us spoonies could show the youth of today a thing or two about holding their drugs. On most viewing platforms I'd guarantee our prescription meds outranked their rather more illegal ones. Add in a pint or two, and they were lurching around the place with an unseemly lack of tolerance, while us wheelies and spoonies looked on knowingly, perfectly cogent on our morphine-and-gin or tramadol-and-beer.

Billy Bragg was playing his own set on the Leftfield stage at 9pm, so we set of through the endless crowds to get in place. Unfotunately, the stewards often turned out to be a little TOO helpful and in an attempt to show us shortcuts, often sent us in endless circles only to end up in completely the wrong field.

We got a little lost and I got a little crankly as my energy-spoons dipped. We finally got back, but I needed tea and a little rest, so we came in the back gate to the backstage area and the sanctuary of the green room. As Billy smashed out tunes to a thrilled audience that reached right back to the food stalls, the energy started to infect me. I started to revive, but the thought of fighting our way around to the front stage and the viewing platform wasn't so appealing. We asked the stage guy what our best chance of making it were and he smiled and said we could watch from backstage if we liked!!! I've never been backstage anywhere before, it was so exciting! There I was, just a few feet from Billy Bragg as he smashed out songs I'd known for most of my life. I turned around to find Phil Jupitus (turns out he's a mate of Billy's) singing along loudly in my right ear as Ranking Roger from the Beat strolled past outside. Get me!! Little old spoonie me who spent most of last year in bed, pleased just to be able to get to the loo!

I felt happy! Actually happy. Filled with joy and fun, I buzzed and managed a kind of wheelie-dance from my chair. I couldn't remember the last time I'd had fun, just plain old fun and it felt amazing....

Continued tomorrow..............

Glastonbury Gas Gas Gas! Part One

This will be an unusually long set of posts for those who follow my adventures. I don't want you all to miss a moment.....

As most of you will know, Billy Bragg asked me to speak at the leftfield stage at Glastonbury. Every now and then an email lands in my inbox that makes me wonder if it's really for me at all. I mean Glastonbury!!! Who wouldn't want that opportunity? And Billy Bragg! Towering leftie icon who has peppered my life with sense and bravery, always telling truth to power.

I was so focussed on the speaking bit, it didn't really occur to me til we trundled up to the site in my mother-in-law's camper van that I was really going to be at Glastonbury! All weekend! Doing fun stuff too!

It's been a very long time since I had fun. As you know, I spent most of last year in bed, being sporadically cut open by well meaning surgeons. The pinnacle of my goals was to get to the bathroom. The thought of 4 days at Glastonbury with the cool kids was actually intimidating. People asked me if I was nervous about speaking. Nope, I always love that bit, but the idea of being cool, having fun, being away from my safety-net-bed - that was scary.  I thought of you all, my housebound or bed-ridden followers and many, many, times, I wished you could all be there with me. To feel the sparking excitement, the joy, the freedom of 150,000 people letting loose, leaving their humdrum fears and stresses behind. Creating utopia, even if only for a few days.

We arrived late after 2 sports days and a long drive to Devon to drop the kids with the in-laws. It was raining - who expects anything else at Glastonbury? And I started to worry how Dave would push the wheelchair if the whole farm mulched into a soggy, muddy quagmire.

That moment, as we pulled into the site! I muttered under my breath to you all. My God! Spoonies don't do this! This was the "Outside" amplified. Thousands and thousands of soggy ablies made a makeshift city of alternative colour. Tents peppered the hillsides for as far as the eye could see, flags and fairy lights proclaiming a new way. Or perhaps an old way that could never quite beat the capitalist, corporate grey of "real life"

I was struck by how mashed most people already were. As we tried to inch the camper through throngs of rain drenched bodies to the middle of the site, where Leftfield sits, people leant against the van, tried to climb onto the bumpers, shouting love and peace, stumbling and lurching in front of the van.


I had been worried about my clothes. More Audrey Hepburn in style than Courtney Love, I'd packed every random bit of non-prim cloth I could drag from my wardrobe and decided I might fit in if I just wore them all together. I needn't have worried. From middle aged men in Tigger suits to girls dressed as fairies, a guy in a wetsuit, a guy in swimming trunks and a pokemon hat - No-one cared, no-one judged. I could have worn my wedding dress and indeed, some did.

It was no good. The site was jammed. We had to turn back and a lovely dreadlocked soul called John guided us to another backstage area so that Dave could go to Leftfield on foot to arrange our access.

Alone, I sat in the van and looked out over the hills at the sprawling throng of alternative humanity before me. I was a little nervous without Dave, but I pulled myself up. It was a moment! How often do we stop and just feel the here and now? I was at Glastonbury! I was going to get the opportunity to speak about a subject I'm passionate about. I was out of the musty bedroom prison that had held me hostage. I told myself off. "Live it Sue, make the most of every moment. What's to fear but fear itself?" I spoke to my Dad, quietly in the gloom of reflected hedonism. I spoke to you guys. I spoke to no-one in particular.

Dave came back, muddy and triumphant to tell me that Sarah, the Leftfield organiser had insisted to every level of security that we must be let in. However, there was a traffic lockdown, and it wouldn't lift until 3am. It was midnight by then, so we sat and drank tea as the hours ticked by, soaking up the atmosphere.

I took a nap in the comfy, glamping version of slumming it that was all I could manage, as balls of fire shot from Arcadia and pumping bass beats sang a raucous lullaby.

At some point as I slept, security arrived and led me, like the Queen of Sheba, propped up on my pillows into the heart of the Glastonbury site. Lights flashed a warning, an escort of 4 or 5 more security guards on foot shouted a clear path and like the most vippy of VIPs, we were heralded into place.

The Leftfield site was right in the heart of the action. The Pyramid stage was just to our right, the Other Stage to our left. Arcadia behind us, John Peel stage in front of us. Even at 3am, it was a riot of noise and driving beats. I learnt quickly that Glastonbury never sleeps - who wants to miss a moment? Sleep's for sleepy people.

****** Continued soon....

Wheelchair petition, please sign & Share

If  we can't provide the right wheelchairs for people based on need, what's the point of calling ourselves civilized?

PLEASE sign this petition and share it with all your friends. Urge them to sign. We need to show that we DO care.

change.org/en-GB/petitions/nhs-wheelchair-services-nationwide-to-provide-complex-wheelchairs-to-everyone-with-need-for-them?share_id=IiFYdbEojt&utm_campaign=twitter_link_action_box&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=share_petition …

John Pring's disability news roudup

John Pring's weekly disability news roundup. He really has outdone himself this week. Pls share

• The government faces new questions about its commitment to supporting disabled people, after the chancellor announced details of a new cap on benefits spending, and then failed to assess its likely impact on disabled people.
• The minister for disabled people has been criticised for pulling out of a key speech about her reforms and disability living allowance cuts to an audience of disabled people and other campaigners.
• The number of disabled people in “absolute” poverty rose by 100,000 during the coalition’s second year in office, according to new figures obtained by Disability News Service.
• Campaigners have raised concerns about crucial sections of a new government consultation on controversial changes that have tightened eligibility for the new mobility benefit.
• Fresh concerns have been raised over the government’s Work Programme after new figures showed that only a tiny proportion of disabled people have gained a job since the scheme launched two years ago.
• The award of a £184 million disability assessment contract to the controversial outsourcing company Atos Healthcare is to be referred to the National Audit Office.
• Members of the disability arts movement came together with anti-cuts activists this week to look for a way to boost the fight to save the Independent Living Fund from closure.
• A new project is bringing alive 100 years of disabled people’s education, through the voices of those who experienced it.
• The care watchdog has finally agreed to investigate how a nursing assistant accused of abusing disabled people could then work for a care agency, even though she should have been barred from all care work.
• The government’s advisers on law reform have proposed changes to legislation that could make it easier for prosecutors to bring disability hate crime charges to court.
• Young campaigners have met in parliament with representatives of the music industry to ask them to stop discriminating against disabled music fans.

John Pring

Editor: Disability News Service

Author: Longcare Survivors: The Biography of a Care Scandal

Tel: 020 8446 5900, 07776 206595

Email: john@disabilitynewsservice.com

The Cruelty in Osborne's CSR

Something happened during Osborne's Comprehensive Spending Review yesterday.

It took a while to sink in, as these things often do.

But a government who had previously at least paid lip service to "protecting the most vulnerable" clearly couldn't bring themselves to pretend any longer that we're "All in it together".

Firstly, the overall welfare spending cap. What does this mean? (And remember, this is Labour policy too :( )

By including "Disability Benefits" This government of the privileged elite broke any remaining link between social security and need. Let's remember for a moment. Disability Living Allowance (currently being replaced with Personal Independence Payments or PIPs) Is a NON-MEANS TESTED benefit, paid to cover the EXTRA costs of disability. Based on an assessment of NEED, anyone with a significant illness or disability that limits their ability to take part in society on the same basis as anyone else is entitled to claim.

You may be in work or out of work, rich or poor, DLA is based on none of that.

For the sake of tax, DLA is not counted. For the sake of housing benefit or tax credit, DLA is not counted. It is an entirely independent amount to cover - let's say it again - the EXTRA costs faced by sick or disabled people.

Make no mistake. Including disability benefits in the overall welfare spending cap ends any pretence that the cross party support for DLA and a non-means tested disability benefit, still exists.

It will mean that entitlement to sickness or disability support is based on COST not NEED. It will break an agreement that has held for decades. It will mean there is no longer any guarantee that NEED will lead to an award.

And the second mean, nasty little detail : Making anyone who becomes unemployed wait 7 days before they can "sign on" for unemployment benefit.

Oh sure, if you live in a stately home, sit in line for a baronetcy and expect a £30 million inheritance, this might make perfect sense.

But who claims "The Dole" or "Job seekers allowance" (JSA) as it's been known for some time? Not bankers or lawyers or MPs.

In reality, there is a cohort of workers, trapped in a cycle of poorly paid, low skilled work, zero hour contracts and few if any employee rights. They tend to work for 3 months here, 6 months there before work that may be seasonal or cyclical rejects them back to the jobcentre. There is no ability to save or work their way up. They tend to live hand to mouth, payday to payday. When the contract ends, there is nothing in reserve.

Waiting 7 days, means 7 days without food. 7 days without nappies. 7 days without rent. 7 days without heating or lighting. And that's just 7 days before you can APPLY. It might be 3 or 4 weeks before you actually see any money.

Sure, if you earned 40k or even 80k you can manage for a bit. You probably got redundancy. You might have a network of contacts who can suggest a new job. You don't tend to be knocking at the jobcentre door at 9am on a Monday morning.

No, it's only those in the most desperate need who are forced into "signing on". Only those who can't find other work. Making them wait 7 days won't suddenly magic up a job. It won't suddenly make people more resourceful and determined. The threat of imminent starvation tends to make people fairly resourceful and determined in the first place.

This won't affect those the government assure us have been "languishing on benefits" uninterested in work. Nope, they'll already be claiming.

It will only affect those who really need help. All poxy £60-odd quid a week of it.

If anything proves how little this government know about the people who's lives they're playing with it is this mean, nasty, ill thought through, cruel little policy. It will help no-one and hurt those who until moments ago were working. Or in government speak, "doing the right thing"

It will starve their children, push their mothers and fathers to foodbanks and charity, force proud men and women to beg.

Sorry, but there's only really one word. You utter bastards.

The Revelation Period

*Caution : This article contains language some readers may find offensive. However, language evolves for a reason. Believe me, I find the issues it raises more offensive*

Also : TRIGGER for some

You must excuse my history. Most of it comes through the prism of Shakespeare and my literature degree. So, for me, history is : The Middle Ages, The Renaissance, The Romantics and The Restoration.

Lately, I very often find myself wondering how history will remember and reflect on Britain - and of course the wider world - at the turn of this 3rd millennium.

Every generation thinks themselves the best, the most modern, the most advanced or enlightened. As human beings, unable to comprehend what we have yet to discover, we believe we've reached the pinnacle of what humans may achieve. Of course each generation, dripping with arrogance and youth are wrong, we know almost nothing.

There seems to be little doubt that we are on the brink of - probably already living through - one of the greatest periods of flux the world has ever known. 

From the "Arab Spring" to the global crisis of capitalism. From crippling austerity regimes to the erosion of civil rights -of democracy itself -we feel as though we are on the very brink of disaster or epiphany. Certainly I feel as though we are blinking into a new light that is shining on every corrupt corner of the modern lives we thought so advanced, so progressive.

How did we miss so much? When did we stop caring about our own futures, about our country and how it reflects us back onto the world? When did we give up, roll over? When did we decide we could never win and it didn't much matter either way? 

If historians name this period at all, surely it will be "The Revelation"?

Oh, we all knew deep down. We all knew we were discreetly looking away, taking care of our own. We knew there was greed and corruption, but those sofas on the never-never and cheap cardboard "food" made it all so easy. 

Just 13 years into this new millennium, so plated in gold and hopeful opportunity, and the cheap patina has all but worn away. 

For most of those 13 short years - barely a drop in the ocean of time - day after day, month after month, it seems a light has finally started to shine into the darker corners of modern life, exposing almost certainly just the tip of the iceberg of the full extent of the problems we face. For most of us, it's just too much to comprehend. Perhaps that's why so many switched off altogether. 

What can "ordinary" people, like us, do to feed all those poor crying babies we see in the NSPCC and Oxfam ads? To love them and give them a little of the abundance we take for granted? How can we alone  stop wars or expose corporate corruption? We feel powerless, overwhelmed, and so we focus on making our own little lives as good as they can be. It's just too painful to dwell on all the pain and injustice in the world. We feel ashamed if we try.

The thing that shocks me most is the sheer scale of our decay. 

You see, it turns out a group of overpaid, over privileged bankers and traders and business people had been playing poker with everyone's money. Also, they were really, really bad at it. No matter though, the FSA set up to regulate them was a toothless, corrupt, lapdog anyway, so it didn't matter. And they didn't go to prison of course. Nope, they're still sipping a nice crisp glass of Cristal on the terraces of the poor. 

Anyone working in TV or radio, or politics or the catholic church (and probably any other institutions in which the powerful may harm the weak) could fuck children at will if they chose, seemingly with no fear of punishment or exposure. As though they were choosing from a puberty-menu, we now seem to be witnessing the unravelling of schemes so established, so common-place, they had been causing harm, unchecked, for decades

How about the media? They were deleting messages from a dead girl's phone to get their "scoop". Accused of paying off the police, attempting to influence politicians through bribery and blackmail. Lying in endless cruel stories in an attempt to feed the vulnerable to the middle classes.

Priests raping little boys in the vestry. 

MPs, greedy and grasping, abusing their expenses so spectacularly and almost universally, that few of us will ever forget the "duck moat" or the claim for a husband's porn viewing. 

Energy companies charging more & more for fuel, to pad the pockets of shareholders who must, of course, always see a profit. Preferably billions of it. Why waste all those precious 50ps crammed frugally into slots? 

Mobile phone companies charging hundreds or even thousands of pounds to make exactly the same phonecalls abroad as you would at home. 

Payday loan companies breezily charging up to 4000% interest on loans only the most disadvantaged would ever consider. 

Food that is so toxic from processing and additives, padded out with a little horse or insect or offal, we begin to wonder if eating might do us more harm than the starvation it exists to avoid. 

Sick and disabled people sent back a generation on nothing more than the assumptions of the hale, healthy and more able. Juggled by corporate giants, their fate so much less important than the truth.

Politicians, who were never at the top of the honesty tree to begin with, lying daily and with ever growing confidence that "nothing will be done" or assuring us that "something must be done" when we all know clearly that nothing ever will be done. At least not by them. 

Global businesses paying their taxes in pennies that should be pounds. Billions and billions "avoided" perfectly legally by corporate giants while smaller businesses close daily in a futile attempt to compete. 

A housing market grown so bloated that rent now siphons off 40% of what we earn. Landlords who leave properties to crumble, confident they won't be ordered to improve. No cap on what they can charge, an assumption that you will never get your deposit back however you leave the property. A buyers market that can no longer sustain itself, so overpriced, that in many areas you need to earn £80k to get a mortgage on an average family home. Not enough homes and even if there were, nowhere near enough money to pay for them

Hospitals and care homes allowed to abuse the vulnerable or elderly unchecked, often bullying, cruel and inadequate. But that's OK, because the health watchdog was corrupt too and almost never stepped in.

Poor so much poorer, rich so much richer.

Wages consistently falling and falling and falling again, eroding the parts of life we work for. Unless you're a CEO. Or a banker. Or a director. Or a..... you get the idea. The great and the good "invited" to police stations where the rest of us are dragged in chains. 

Crops grown & destroyed for nothing but subsidies while most of the world starve. 

Wars with ever more dubious justifications.

Whistle-blowers damned, justice-seekers gagged. 

A protest slogan sweeping Europe "Bread, education, freedom" that surely popped up mistakenly from a Victor Hugo novel?

Pension funds raided, entitlements that no longer entitle.

And we KNEW. Really, deep down we did, didn't we? We knew the homes we were buying were overpriced, but you have to have a roof over you head. We knew the food we were eating was probably crap, but they made the crap taste so goooood, we couldn't resist! We knew landlords were ripping us off, but what could be done? We knew MPs were lying and bankers were cooking the books, but impotence is overwhelming when faced with so much to fix. So we carry on, we turn a blind eye, we walk by on the other side. 

Most of these stories rumbled on for years - sometimes even decades - before anyone took notice or seemed to care. For instance, Tom Watson and others tried to expose the phone hacking scandal for nearly a decade, but only when journalists hacked a young, dead, girl's mobile did the country really hear anything but the constant everyday white noise of misery. 

So here we are, at the birth of The Revelation period. I can only hope historians report it more faithfully than any of our here-and-now media.