Published by The Guardian (30th October, 2015) Rejoice, rejoice. Britain’s biggest companies hit a target of ensuring half the population have one quarter to seats in their boardrooms. Sarcasm […]
Disability
It’s tough when a disabled child becomes adult
Published by The Sun (17th September, 2014) The birth of a child who turns out to have profound and complex disabilities is a shock. It sent me spiralling […]
Disability / Health / Policy
Our medical advances have outstripped our humanity
Published by The Guardian (8th August, 2014) I can still remember each second of that day just before Christmas when everything changed. The happy family lunch, then the […]
Disability
As gay people celebrate, another minority remains stuck in the shadows
Published by The Independent (31st March, 2014) They were clearing up the confetti, nursing hangovers and disappearing on honeymoons yesterday after the first batch of gay marriages in […]
Crime / Disability / Policy
Insulted, bullied and murdered – for being disabled
Published in The Independent (November 8th, 2013) David is an autistic man in his fifties. He lives in his own flat in north-east London, earning piecemeal money washing […]
Disability
A year on from the Paralympics, people with disabilities still face prejudice and abuse
Published in The Guardian (August 28th, 2013) When Don goes out, he faces frequent hostility. Despite living in a picture postcard part of the country, this man in […]
Disability / Health / Policy
The NHS is killing disabled people
Published in The Guardian (May 22nd, 2013) My daughter was ill at the weekend. Just a heavy cold; but when your child has profound and multiple learning disabilities, […]
Disability / Policy / Politics / Welfare
All we can agree on is that welfare’s in a state
Published in The Independent (April 2nd, 2013) What a strange world we live in. A clutch of Church leaders spent their holiest weekend of the year queuing up to […]
Disability / Policy / Social care
We’re all living longer. How afraid should we be?
Published in The Independent (February 11th, 2013) On the day I was born in 1962, the number of British centenarians was in three figures. Since then numbers have […]
Health / Policy
Victims of our blind faith in the NHS
Published in The Independent (February 7th, 2013) It is just seven months since the NHS was presented to a baffled world as one of the great features of […]
Disability / Health / Policy
What the NHS needs even more than money – a dose of kindness
Published in The Daily Mail (December 5th, 2012) Even today, 19 years on, I can still remember every second of the day my world crashed in. It was […]
Disability
Put people with learning difficulties at the core of society
Published in The Observer (December 2nd, 2012) Another day, another outbreak of hand-wringing over how to protect vulnerable people from abuse in so-called care homes. Yesterday, it was […]