The UK government plans to cut £1bn from the Disability Living Allowance: described over and over again as a lifeline.
(In January last year, quietly, George Osborne cut funding for the mobility component of DLA from disabled people in residential care homes, since obviously there’s no particular need in David Cameron’s eyes for a severely disabled adult ever to leave the building in which they live. The Torch Relay is to pass within “easy reach” of 95% of the UK population, but I doubt if “easy reach” was estimated with disabilities in mind.)
ATOS assess disabled people to see if they’re “fit for work”.
[Update, 11 hours later: One of the people who read this and reacted to it was Kristina Veasey, who in 2008 at the Beijing Games was Paralympic Ambassador for Amnesty International.
@britishroses1 @EyeEdinburgh Article is DLA and being fit for work muddle.I was paralympian and working.DLA not to do with ability to work.
— Kristina Veasey (@tippyscarecrow) May 22, 2012
We talked on Twitter and I wrote an update: see end of blog.]