Published by The i paper (6th November, 2023) The Covid inquiry last week performed an invaluable service. It seemed as if we were watching a savage new political satire […]
Disability / Health / Policy / Social care
A grotesque denial of human rights is dragging on
Published by The Times (7th August, 2023) When Franco Basaglia took over a huge asylum in Trieste in 1971, the charismatic psychiatrist found a place that felt like […]
Disability / Europe / Health / Holland / Policy
Euthanasia is a slippery slope
Published by The i paper (17th April, 2023) There are few more sensitive political issues than legalisation of euthanasia. On one hand we hear emotive pleas from patients […]
Health / Policy / Social care
Why would you envy the NHS?
Published by UnHerd (18th January, 2023) They say the first step in fixing a crisis is to recognise there is a problem. So let us give thanks for […]
Politics
Sunak’s missed opportunity
Published by The i paper (1st August, 2022) The bandwagon is rolling for Liz Truss as ballot papers go out to Tory members who will choose our next […]
Disability / Europe / Russia / Ukraine
People with disabilities abandoned in Ukraine
Published by The i paper (4th April, 2022) It is almost six weeks since Vladimir Putin unleashed hell on Ukraine. His forces have pulverised cities, shattered communities and […]
Feature / Health / Policy
The ugly truth about psychiatric care
Published by The i paper (15th November, 2021) It is more than three years since I wrote an angry piece in this publication telling the tale of a […]
Covid19 / Disability
The inhumanity of deeming some lives ‘more valuable’ than others
Published by The Daily Mail (19th January, 2021) Deborah James is a deputy head teacher, a mother of two children and, since her devastating diagnosis with bowel cancer, […]
Covid19 / Disability / Policy / Social care
Britain is callously indifferent to disabled people
Published by The Daily Telegraph (16th January, 2021) When I asked my doughty friend, a working mum on the other side of London, how she was bearing up […]
Disability
Notes to a stranger: Thank you for smiling at my daughter
Published by The i paper (30h December, 2020) This is a note to the woman I passed a few weeks ago on the street. But it could also […]
Disability / Health / Policy / Social care
Fix the care system and end these inhumane detentions
Published by The i paper (30th November, 2020) Susie* is 16 years old. She has autism and special needs. And like so many others with similar conditions, both […]