I think that's not taking into account how Musked their brand is going to be by the next election. Who could ever trust them again after what they've just done?
It's up there with Clegg and tuition fees
I have never understood why Clegg got so much criticism for tuition fees. The LibDems were the junior party in a successful coalition.
When you make a pledge the centrepiece of your campaign and prominently feature photo ops of you signing that pledge at every opportunity and you drop it like a hot rock at the first sniff of a ministerial car it looks rather duplicitous. Besides, the only measure by which the 2010-15 government was successful was in making it to the 2015 election without collapsing, something that could only happen because of the lib dems' abject surrender.
At a time when the voters had rejected Labour after 13 years, the country needed a stable government with a coalition. The LibDems joined the party with the most seats and there was stable government for 5 years.
Clegg's pledge was based on the LibDems winning the election. It was not possible for Clegg to deliver on free tuition as they had not won the election.
He could have refused to march his MPs through the division lobby in support of tripling them, however. The junior partner in a coalition is expected to get something tangible for their support. The lib dems got... a referendum on a "miserable little compromise" that nobody wanted.
And then there was Polly Mackenzie who trumpeted getting the 5p levy on carrier bags for tightening benefit sanctions...
As the scripture goes there is 'joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth' and they did a lot of sinning, but if they're willing under Davey to repent a bit and not vote for this abomination while Starmer and co are utterly non-repentant about it, they would still be an improvement on Starmer.
And then there was Polly Mackenzie who trumpeted getting the 5p levy on carrier bags for tightening benefit sanctions...
As the scripture goes there is 'joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth' and they did a lot of sinning, but if they're willing under Davey to repent a bit and not vote for this abomination while Starmer and co are utterly non-repentant about it, they would still be an improvement on Starmer.
But Davey is a supporter of the present government. He only ever criticises the last government
Wes has got serious competition from Anas Sarwar who was in the Sunday Times with his piece
"We can use our ties with Trump to Make Scotland Greater Again"
And he was on about 'identity politics'
He's also met with Eric Trump, said he'd meet with Trump if he was ever First Minister and expressed his admiration of Musk's work with DOGE and said he'd like to adopt something similar.
Wes the Wanker is at it again - he's formally kicked off that dodgy attack on ND people and people with mental health problems, which will no doubt give him an excuse to deny social security to as many people as possible further down the line. (as previously discussed in Epiphanies)
His witterings about overdiagnosis put this squarely in malicious pseudoscience territory.
Dawn Foster was right about him. (If you know, you know).
We'e created a world in which you have to be super-conformant, super-compliant to fit. There are no jobs for amputees, or people whose resilience isn't up to scratch. If the world defines normality within tiny boundaries, it must expect those who don't fit to declare themselves disabled.
I remember - maybe falsely - that when I was growing up, roadworks would have some sort of guard who had a nice hot brazier to sit next to in cold weather. He may have left school at 13, but there was still a job for him.
I don't suppose you can even be a schoolteacher nowadays if you're eccentric, but a good proportion of my teachers were.
Follow the money. The government won't tax as they should, so they don't have the resources. Therefore they find other ways to restrict provision.
I was a deputy headteacher, and a good one. I privately employed a PA at home to help me with admin. I never revealed my diagnosis of ADHD. People do not understand, even in schools. But I was a good advocate for the ADDer kids - and I knew what they needed. Many grateful parents went through our school.
We'e created a world in which you have to be super-conformant, super-compliant to fit. There are no jobs for amputees, or people whose resilience isn't up to scratch. If the world defines normality within tiny boundaries, it must expect those who don't fit to declare themselves disabled.
I remember - maybe falsely - that when I was growing up, roadworks would have some sort of guard who had a nice hot brazier to sit next to in cold weather. He may have left school at 13, but there was still a job for him.
I don't suppose you can even be a schoolteacher nowadays if you're eccentric, but a good proportion of my teachers were.
I don't know what you are saying here because it doesn't apply to ADHD. We have the same range of intelligence as anyone else. We don't need to guard roadworks! My ADDer son is an airline captain.
To my mind, that's not the right focus. The focus should be on allowing things to be done in more than one way, and under more than one circumstance. Open plan offices are my main issue (I believe myself to both be autistic and have ADHD - I tick all the boxes). They are a hellscape for so many people, being full of noise, smell, overfierce lighting, and just huge numbers of people, in an increasingly small space since the introduction of flat screens. The jobs are one thing, but requiring that they are done in very specific times and manners, in very specific circumstances, narrows the range of people who can satisfy the criteria to a vanishingly small "range".
We'e created a world in which you have to be super-conformant, super-compliant to fit. There are no jobs for amputees, or people whose resilience isn't up to scratch. If the world defines normality within tiny boundaries, it must expect those who don't fit to declare themselves disabled.
I remember - maybe falsely - that when I was growing up, roadworks would have some sort of guard who had a nice hot brazier to sit next to in cold weather. He may have left school at 13, but there was still a job for him.
I don't suppose you can even be a schoolteacher nowadays if you're eccentric, but a good proportion of my teachers were.
I don't know what you are saying here because it doesn't apply to ADHD. We have the same range of intelligence as anyone else. We don't need to guard roadworks! My ADDer son is an airline captain.
I don't think @c52 was talking about ADHD but the broader issue of mental health and disability. There was a time when large organisations would take it upon themselves, in a rough and ready way, to create jobs for people with cognitive impairments that made competing for "normal" jobs unlikely. I don't know how widespread it was, but I've heard enough anecdotes of men employed to sweep the workshop floor and the like to think it was not unusual. There is now a tendency to create a job and expect applicants to squeeze into the role you've designed and do it in the way you expect that works against people with atypical neurotypes, and that ultimately pushes people out of the workforce. It certainly pushed me out of teaching.
We'e created a world in which you have to be super-conformant, super-compliant to fit. There are no jobs for amputees, or people whose resilience isn't up to scratch. If the world defines normality within tiny boundaries, it must expect those who don't fit to declare themselves disabled.
I remember - maybe falsely - that when I was growing up, roadworks would have some sort of guard who had a nice hot brazier to sit next to in cold weather. He may have left school at 13, but there was still a job for him.
I don't suppose you can even be a schoolteacher nowadays if you're eccentric, but a good proportion of my teachers were.
Most disabled people are in work. Being disabled with a limb difference is definitely not inherently a barrier to work. Why do you think someone with a lower limb difference couldn't do a desk job, for instance?
What are you basing your idea that eccentric people can't be teachers on? Eccentricity is also not a disability.
I think we are partly in the world of metaphor here, and partly the world of "what is happening if you remove the diagnostic label?". Many traits which would previously simply have been regarded as eccentric are being given a diagnostic label - autism and ADHD being two of the more common, along with other forms of neurodivergence.
The question is really who can be, or is, included in the workforce, and likewise the "normal" group (N.B. that has so many scare quotes around it, it's ridiculous, but it is still a feature of mainstream thought), and whether one has to be in the latter to be in the former, and if not, how does that work? Do there have to be specific jobs, or are other accommodations possible?
In my own experience, the biggest barriers come from comorbid conditions that arise from the stress of living in a neurotypical world - not from the neurodiversities themselves.
Edited to add that certain sectors tend to attract certain forms of neurodiversity - for eg, entertainment and the arts are full of people with ADHD. Many if not most famous actors have it, yet the discussion from government is never about making careers in the arts more accessible for those whose neurology would particularly thrive there.
Speaking from experience - the whitecollar workplace, as I once knew it, used to be a more autistic friendly place in some ways - working in a small office with a general expectation of quiet except for phone calls, places to go if I needed more quiet or to have a louder conversation, better acoustics as it wasn't all bare, shiny surfaces that harshly reflected noise, good admin support allowing focus on what I was there to do and not forcing me to grapple with multiple badly designed time-wasting online systems etc.
There's no way Streeting is bringing that back or making additional funds available for offices to change or improve.
That’s only part of my life though - there is plenty of stuff where as an autistic person I'm a square peg in a neuronormative round hole and get stressed because of it. Knowing now how autism works with monotropic flow states of focus and sensory differences doesn't solve everything, but it helps a lot - so it shouldn't just be thought of in terms of work. When I had the ideal office conditions there was still a great deal that went distressingly wrong for me with people, the social environment and general executive function and I didn't know why because I didn't have that knowledge back then
Nonetheless if Streeting wanted neurominority people in the workplace - there's plenty that could be done or encouraged to be done that we now know helps - but he's not only uninterested in that, but has appointed the very worst kind of people for that approach.
There are plenty of excellent well-published neurominority scholars who specialise in better understanding of what works and what neurominority people need. He hasn't appointed anyone like that (see under 'nothing about us without us').
And I know from experience that the 'Access to work' scheme that helps all disabled people is underfunded and creaking. This stuff more than pays for itself as it keeps people in long term tax-paying work and in better health. It's a false economy to cut in-work help and help to work - as well as the misery it causes. And they're not planning to do anything about that either.
At the moment this looks in danger of being a badly conceived review designed to give the answers they want to hear. Streeting is a menace.
Yes, agreed with all of that - the sensory profile of most workplaces nowadays causes huge problems for many autistic people. See also fluorescent lighting! And that's even more of an issue for people in lower-paid jobs like retail and call centres, and people at school/college.
The treatment of neuro divergent people I'm seeing at work and its distance from professed policy are combining to make me weep and scream simultaneously.
And not unconnected, something strange has been going on at the OBR where figures that show that social security is not 'spiralling' up were unaccountably removed from the budget forecast
Pretending the reverse is true is how Starmer, Streeting and Reeves justify their ongoing attacks including this one.
They know this, it's been repeatedly pointed out to them since last year, yet the Labour ministers keep up the attack along with Badenoch and Farage.
They really are in the wrong party or rather if you're not up for false scapegoating of minorities in a futile effort to appeal to Daily Mail etc. readers then anyone who participates in Labour or votes for it is in the wrong party.
I was interested on More or Less to hear the treasury's definition of in work benefits is very different to what people mostly mean - as in education and healthcare are benefits provided to citizens. So I'd be really interested to know what the OBR include when they describe welfare costs
But they're not in the wrong party. There has always been this current in Labour, now in the ascendancy. I suppose people have been pretending they are left wing since the year dot.
Yes, agreed with all of that - the sensory profile of most workplaces nowadays causes huge problems for many autistic people. See also fluorescent lighting! And that's even more of an issue for people in lower-paid jobs like retail and call centres, and people at school/college.
Yes.
I wear a cap a lot due do awful lighting, and I'm retired so I can choose not to go unlike the workplace.
But crucially Streeting hasn't removed Wessely from his key role. And that means we can't have confidence at all in this review - given Wessely's track record.
Politically, seeing the backlash Streeting's got, he can tactically walk his own comments back for now and then wait for the report to give him cover to clobber us - the way Cass was used to clobber trans people with Streeting's enthusiastic post-review collaboration. Even politicians who had not formerly voiced anti-trans views pointed to that farrago, shrugged their shoulders and let services for young trans people be destroyed.
Noticeably Starmer hasn't walked back his proposed attack on young disabled people (and he specifically mentioned neurodiversity) so they wont get the health element of universal credit. So Streeting's current posturing can't be taken at face value given the direction of travel.
By the time a well-massaged report hits newspapers and media who lap it up and trumpet it, it's too late. Streeting can weep crocodile tears about how his hand has been forced and the press will totally cover for him. I'd look at what he does and what he's done - not just what he says.
If he had genuinely changed his views he would stop this review and respond to the research already there which shows underdiagnosis, and he would tackle the well-known barriers that stop ADHD folk especially accessing diagnosis and meds. This stuff isnt a mystery.
Streeting has already shown what he is by how he treated trans people. Nobody should trust him after that.
In my own experience, the biggest barriers come from comorbid conditions that arise from the stress of living in a neurotypical world - not from the neurodiversities themselves.
Edited to add that certain sectors tend to attract certain forms of neurodiversity - for eg, entertainment and the arts are full of people with ADHD. Many if not most famous actors have it, yet the discussion from government is never about making careers in the arts more accessible for those whose neurology would particularly thrive there.
The arts and entertainment are difficult to get into as it is. There are not enough jobs for the amount of performers that need them. They need extra money just to support organisations that provide the hose jobs. Where do you think the old cliche of an actor waiting tables comes from?
Meanwhile, none of this is doing them any good. It doesn't matter what a hard man Streeting thinks it makes him look to be part of attacks on various stigmatised groups, many of the the voters he (and his equally nasty fellow cabinet ministers) are chasing are increasingly not in touch with reality.
Our elderly relative who mainlines dangerous rubbish off YouTube solemnly trotted out to my husband the old racist canard that the Government had banned wishing people 'Happy Christmas' and that Shabana Mahmood was behind it. ( It's probably a garbled bit of spin about the Christmas Card competition for kids of all faiths she runs)
Never mind that we have an illiberal scapegoating far-right government, so far as the algorithmically-poisoned are concerned they're some fictional threat to the left of Ken Livingstone's GLC.
Comments
He could have refused to march his MPs through the division lobby in support of tripling them, however. The junior partner in a coalition is expected to get something tangible for their support. The lib dems got... a referendum on a "miserable little compromise" that nobody wanted.
As the scripture goes there is 'joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth' and they did a lot of sinning, but if they're willing under Davey to repent a bit and not vote for this abomination while Starmer and co are utterly non-repentant about it, they would still be an improvement on Starmer.
But Davey is a supporter of the present government. He only ever criticises the last government
https://www.itn.co.uk/news/welfare-reform-davey-fears-vulnerable-disabled-people-0
As I said the bar's on the floor here - is he willing to vote against Reeves and Starmer and their cuts affecting disabled people or not?
If yes, better, if no then not.
"We can use our ties with Trump to Make Scotland Greater Again"
And he was on about 'identity politics'
Perhaps he thinks if he appeases them the leopards might eat his face last...
They are sinking like a stone in the polls and this dire stuff will sink them even further
He's also met with Eric Trump, said he'd meet with Trump if he was ever First Minister and expressed his admiration of Musk's work with DOGE and said he'd like to adopt something similar.
His witterings about overdiagnosis put this squarely in malicious pseudoscience territory.
Dawn Foster was right about him. (If you know, you know).
I remember - maybe falsely - that when I was growing up, roadworks would have some sort of guard who had a nice hot brazier to sit next to in cold weather. He may have left school at 13, but there was still a job for him.
I don't suppose you can even be a schoolteacher nowadays if you're eccentric, but a good proportion of my teachers were.
But that is why people then need a formal diagnosis, and have to wait for tests to define their particular neurodiversity or other condition.
https://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/alarm-over-governments-choices-to-lead-over-diagnosis-review-that-could-help-ministers-cut-benefits/
There was a narrower investigation by NHS England that concluded that adhd at least is probably underdiagnosed: https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/report-of-the-independent-adhd-taskforce-part-1/
Perhaps that result wasn't politically convenient.
I was a deputy headteacher, and a good one. I privately employed a PA at home to help me with admin. I never revealed my diagnosis of ADHD. People do not understand, even in schools. But I was a good advocate for the ADDer kids - and I knew what they needed. Many grateful parents went through our school.
I don't know what you are saying here because it doesn't apply to ADHD. We have the same range of intelligence as anyone else. We don't need to guard roadworks! My ADDer son is an airline captain.
I don't think @c52 was talking about ADHD but the broader issue of mental health and disability. There was a time when large organisations would take it upon themselves, in a rough and ready way, to create jobs for people with cognitive impairments that made competing for "normal" jobs unlikely. I don't know how widespread it was, but I've heard enough anecdotes of men employed to sweep the workshop floor and the like to think it was not unusual. There is now a tendency to create a job and expect applicants to squeeze into the role you've designed and do it in the way you expect that works against people with atypical neurotypes, and that ultimately pushes people out of the workforce. It certainly pushed me out of teaching.
Most disabled people are in work. Being disabled with a limb difference is definitely not inherently a barrier to work. Why do you think someone with a lower limb difference couldn't do a desk job, for instance?
What are you basing your idea that eccentric people can't be teachers on? Eccentricity is also not a disability.
The question is really who can be, or is, included in the workforce, and likewise the "normal" group (N.B. that has so many scare quotes around it, it's ridiculous, but it is still a feature of mainstream thought), and whether one has to be in the latter to be in the former, and if not, how does that work? Do there have to be specific jobs, or are other accommodations possible?
Edited to add that certain sectors tend to attract certain forms of neurodiversity - for eg, entertainment and the arts are full of people with ADHD. Many if not most famous actors have it, yet the discussion from government is never about making careers in the arts more accessible for those whose neurology would particularly thrive there.
There's no way Streeting is bringing that back or making additional funds available for offices to change or improve.
That’s only part of my life though - there is plenty of stuff where as an autistic person I'm a square peg in a neuronormative round hole and get stressed because of it. Knowing now how autism works with monotropic flow states of focus and sensory differences doesn't solve everything, but it helps a lot - so it shouldn't just be thought of in terms of work. When I had the ideal office conditions there was still a great deal that went distressingly wrong for me with people, the social environment and general executive function and I didn't know why because I didn't have that knowledge back then
Nonetheless if Streeting wanted neurominority people in the workplace - there's plenty that could be done or encouraged to be done that we now know helps - but he's not only uninterested in that, but has appointed the very worst kind of people for that approach.
There are plenty of excellent well-published neurominority scholars who specialise in better understanding of what works and what neurominority people need. He hasn't appointed anyone like that (see under 'nothing about us without us').
And I know from experience that the 'Access to work' scheme that helps all disabled people is underfunded and creaking. This stuff more than pays for itself as it keeps people in long term tax-paying work and in better health. It's a false economy to cut in-work help and help to work - as well as the misery it causes. And they're not planning to do anything about that either.
At the moment this looks in danger of being a badly conceived review designed to give the answers they want to hear. Streeting is a menace.
This is it really; not least in the choice of the people to lead it and their history of motivated reasoning: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/12/chronic-fatigue-syndrome-me-treatments-social-services
https://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/watchdogs-silence-after-removing-figures-that-showed-social-security-spending-is-not-spiralling/
Pretending the reverse is true is how Starmer, Streeting and Reeves justify their ongoing attacks including this one.
They know this, it's been repeatedly pointed out to them since last year, yet the Labour ministers keep up the attack along with Badenoch and Farage.
They really are in the wrong party or rather if you're not up for false scapegoating of minorities in a futile effort to appeal to Daily Mail etc. readers then anyone who participates in Labour or votes for it is in the wrong party.
Yeah, and this is why I have very little patience with the 'papers are being soooo mean to them' complaints.
Yes.
I wear a cap a lot due do awful lighting, and I'm retired so I can choose not to go unlike the workplace.
Politically, seeing the backlash Streeting's got, he can tactically walk his own comments back for now and then wait for the report to give him cover to clobber us - the way Cass was used to clobber trans people with Streeting's enthusiastic post-review collaboration. Even politicians who had not formerly voiced anti-trans views pointed to that farrago, shrugged their shoulders and let services for young trans people be destroyed.
Noticeably Starmer hasn't walked back his proposed attack on young disabled people (and he specifically mentioned neurodiversity) so they wont get the health element of universal credit. So Streeting's current posturing can't be taken at face value given the direction of travel.
By the time a well-massaged report hits newspapers and media who lap it up and trumpet it, it's too late. Streeting can weep crocodile tears about how his hand has been forced and the press will totally cover for him. I'd look at what he does and what he's done - not just what he says.
If he had genuinely changed his views he would stop this review and respond to the research already there which shows underdiagnosis, and he would tackle the well-known barriers that stop ADHD folk especially accessing diagnosis and meds. This stuff isnt a mystery.
Streeting has already shown what he is by how he treated trans people. Nobody should trust him after that.
The arts and entertainment are difficult to get into as it is. There are not enough jobs for the amount of performers that need them. They need extra money just to support organisations that provide the hose jobs. Where do you think the old cliche of an actor waiting tables comes from?
Our elderly relative who mainlines dangerous rubbish off YouTube solemnly trotted out to my husband the old racist canard that the Government had banned wishing people 'Happy Christmas' and that Shabana Mahmood was behind it. ( It's probably a garbled bit of spin about the Christmas Card competition for kids of all faiths she runs)
Never mind that we have an illiberal scapegoating far-right government, so far as the algorithmically-poisoned are concerned they're some fictional threat to the left of Ken Livingstone's GLC.
(Greater London Council)