Weekly roundup

I've had a busy week including meeting David Blunkett and having my friend Lorraine (pictured above with me) with her little boy Ben to stay for a long weekend.

RADIATE and David Blunkett

Last Wednesday I went to the second meeting of the Radiate network (Radiate is a network of "disabled high flyers" so I feel very lucky to be part of it.) The meeting took the form of networking time and an interview of David Blunkett by Peter White and then a quick Q & A. The interview was really enlightening, Peter certainly got David Blunkett to open up. It was interesting to hear that David Blunkett did regret not asking for more help in his career as a politician and in particular not asking for more reasonable adjustments when he was a minister.

When it came to the Q&A I got to ask a question, so I made the most of it and asked about Disability Living Allowance (DLA), in his interview David Blunkett has mentioned that some in the Labour government did not understand what DLA was about. So I asked about the current measures proposed by the coalition government, because yet again DLA is being misunderstood and being spoke about as if it is a welfare to work benefit.

For those not familiar with DLA it is a non means tested benefit which is given to disabled people and the parents of disabled children after a rigorous application process. The benefit is paid not as a benefit related to employment or lack of, but to meet the extra costs which disabled people are faced with because of barriers they face in society or as a direct result of their impairment. DLA is paid at different levels which relate to the difficulty disabled people face with day to day care and independence needs and mobility.

Fot example I receive DLA for care and mobility at a low rate (I've not reapplied for any more since 1996 when I first lived by myself) I use DLA to pay towards taxis especially in the winter when it is dark and it is difficult for me to walk short distances, and to meet the cost of every day items that cost me more because I need them to be accessible for me. Even simple things like an alarm clock that I can read at night because it lights up and has extra large numbers costs more than a standard one. Those are just a couple of examples but I hope they explain.

Anyway the Coalition Government want to introduce mandatory medicals in 2013 for all DLA recipients. At the moment I don't get called in for medicals on a 4 yearly basis like some on DLA do, this is because my eye condition will not improve. If my circumstances change I can of course contact the DLA office. I wanted to know what David Blunkett thought should be done to A provide more information about what DLA is for and B how to campaign against the "medicalisation" of DLA. His answers were very interesting but I'm not going to go into them here. You'll have to watch this space as I'll be blogging about it specifically in the next couple of days!

Lorraine and Ben visit

On Friday my friend Lorraine and her little boy Ben (he's nearly 7) visited for a long weekend on their way back to Inverness from a holiday on the south coast. We had a lovely and lively weekend, including visits to Hitchin for some shopping, a trip to the park, visiting various sweet shops, 2 bouncy slides and a roundabout ride, visits to Bedfordshire Growers and Simply Oaks as well as a BBQ on Sunday. We also watched Primer which was one of the oddest films I've seen in a while but it s well worth a watch.

It was lovely to see Lorraine, as living at opposite ends of the British Isles its hard to meet up regularly. If only a Star Trek teleportation machine was available and we could just be "beamed up" to where ever we wanted to meet!