In one paragraph, the Timms Interim Report says, "Some people on PIP may be scared to work, volunteer or do physical activity as this could be seen as evidence that their functional ability has improved." In the very next paragraph, PIP is used to support those activities.

On my way, Clacton.

WE HAVE AVOCET NEWS!!! An Avocet spotted at RSPB Middleton Lakes has been confirmed as the oldest ever recorded in the UK. At 36 years old, it's lived more than five times longer than the species' average lifespan. First ringed in 1990, it's still out there doing Avocet things. Go on Avocet. 😍

I just got asked for age verification by Ocado delivery driver 🤣. It's been about 15 yrs since my last alcohol age check. What drink, you ask? Pimms. Yep that underage drinking staple. 🤣🤣🤣🤣 Still, I'm taking the win as I am in my mid 40s 😎

Portes "Theres a lot of nonsense talked, including on Sky, about the spiralling welfare bill.. as a proportion of our national income.. its lower than it was 15yrs ago & its pretty much back to what it was under Thatcher.. this idea its out of control is just wrong" Spot on!

BBC and Sky News fail to explain why presenters do not push back on claims of ‘spiralling welfare spending’ www.disabilitynewsservice.com/bbc-and-sky-...

Lord Alan West yesterday: "Things like welfare.. are unimportant when you lose a war & you have Russian Chechen stormtroopers coming down the street raping women & killing people" Reintroducing the workhouse or Russians raping your mum. They're the only choices, ok.

DNS is looking for examples from the last few months of broadcasters, particularly BBC News and Sky News, that have failed to challenge claims that spending on 'welfare' is spiralling out of control and needs to be cut. Examples with links to video would be most useful. Thank you!

The right path is not a difficult choice. What they're describing is choosing the guilty path. It's difficult to choose that option because they know they shouldn't do it. Knowing the harm they will cause doesn't sit right. They've found it difficult to act against their conscience.

When politicians and media say ‘difficult choices’, that’s code for working class people about to be screwed.

Sally died because the supported living home she lived in forgot to give her her medication for 300 days. An inquest found she died from neglect but the CQC failed to bring forward a prosecution The problem isn't just the regulator. Its the fact that we've privatised social care

Oh sweet 22.8°C breeze !!! Come on in, stay a while. Circulate. Have you met 28°C room air? I think you'll get on well together. Right, off you two pop and make room for 22.7°C breeze.

It was inevitable, wasn't it🙄 Of course the Telegraph would run with something like this👇 So let's remove some of the rose-tinted spectacles and also look at some of that data comparing 1976 with modern heat waves Because the 1976 nostalgia porn is wearing a bit thin at this stage 🧵1/23

Let them eat icecream cake!

👨‍⚕️: "It could well be 40°C. I think there will be hundreds, if not thousands of excess deaths early next week." 👩: "I want us to be happy about the weather. I don't know whether something's happened to meteorologists to make you all a little bit fatalistic and harbingers of doom" #DontLookUp (2022)

“Labour really did squander two years in power for no obvious reason, and millions of people really will keep living inadequate lives as a result.” > @youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com hits the nail on its sorry head. www.thenewworld.co.uk/marie-le-con...

The public turned against him quickly for a few key reasons: winter fuel; freebies; pessimism; promised change but didn’t deliver fast enough. But let’s not frame these as simply poor choices. He made poor choices because he didn’t have the principles - as well as skills - to make the right ones.

Starmer was effectively a valueless manager who didn’t manage well. A human rights lawyer who supported Israel’s humanitarian blockade. An anti-poverty advocate who tried to impoverish disabled people. He blew whichever way he thought electability would be, and was content to do harm in the process.

Let’s not fudge why Starmer is in this mess. Yes, he didn’t have political instinct. Yes, the public is much less patient and more critical. But Starmer was also - to use his own phase - morally bankrupt on key issues of the day, from Gaza, disability benefits, to immigration.

Live a life that is so rooted in love that no matter how much power someone has, they are still incapable of convincing you to hate other human beings.

The most duplicitous UK politician in my lifetime.

Now that Labour effectively has no leader, any Labour MPs who were too scared to sign EDM 240 can do it

Starmer saying the next PM will inherit a country that is 'fairer' than the one he inherited 2 years ago. In the one Starmer inherited, trans people could use public toilets.

I Really doubt history will remember him, but marginalized communities will. Disabled people, trans people will speak of him in the same way we speak about lizz Truss. Where everyone laughs at their shorter time in office but we grieve the lives they took.

The attacks in Edinburgh, in which an armed bare-chested white man terrorised Muslims, leaving five people injured, don't feature on a single newspaper front page this morning. Two tier journalism

The police didn't see the need to tase this guy and repeatedly kick him in the head, and the media haven't seen the need to make this racially motivated axe and knife attack the top story on all channels with immediate calls for the government to do something about Islamophobia. How odd.

Four people in hospital after knife attacks in Edinburgh. An arrest made. BBC report say man shouted about "protecting the country". Sone signs the attacks near a mosque at petrol station & pizzeria may have had anti-Muslim or anti-migrant/minority motives (tbc) www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

This story currently leads BBC Scotland. But down here in London you have to scroll all the way down past the London news, the World Cup, whatever the BBC calls its Reels equivalent, more World Cup, weekend picks and 'lazy summer recipes' to the 'around the UK' to see it

I didn't know jobs coaching could be part of someone's diet...

For anyone not as close to it, a good explainer on what’s happened with the EHRC code, and why it’s unworkable. Like the social media ban, I’m concerned we are running with policy that’s performative not practical.

The EHRC trans code explained: What it does, how it works and what happens next iandunt.substack.com/p/the-ehrc-t...

Welcome to #GladdersYoga A gentle class tonight as it's a bit warm. Enjoy a nice stretch.

The thing is you gotta be obsessed with the Nazi regime to even reach for a Bonhoeffer reference here and you gotta be an incredibly twisted soul to think Bonhoeffer’s nonviolent heroism is the tragedy we can’t repeat in that story.

Bonhoeffer’s “On Stupidity“

Ten years ago, Jo Cox was murdered by a far-right thug who yelled "Britain first". Today, Cox's party, Labour, has "Putting country first" on its membership cards next to a big Union Jack. Astonishingly crass. Though not as bad as the fact they're implementing her killer's anti-immigration politics.

“Call it two-track governance, where generously funding the military is seen as prudent and necessary but doing the same to improve the lives of ordinary people is wasteful and optional.” My col. on the ‘warfare v welfare’ narrative and unspoken double standards: www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

The UK's youth social media ban will require *all adults* to submit their biometric and personal data to a host of third-party ID verification providers. Some have questionable privacy records – and ties to the Israeli Govt and Peter Thiel. 🧵 bylinetimes.com/2025/07/31/t...

At this point, I genuinely believe the entire public is being actively gaslit by both the media, and Esther Ghey herself, into forgetting that Brianna Ghey was murdered, by people she knew from school, in real life, who were partly influenced by transphobia, fuelled by the media and politicians.

Since 2010, between ESA/UC and PIP I'm averaging an assessment every 14-18 months. As soon as I catch my breath from one, I'm preparing for the next. It feels like erosion, a constant trickle tearing its way through you

Banning children from social media?

i assume banning kids from social media will be accompanied by a huge investment in teen-friendly communtiy spaces (like youth clubs) and social activities? No? Huh.

"This verdict will have a gigantic chilling effect on our wider rights to protest." Siân Berry MP on the Court of Appeal upholding the proscription of Palestine Action

This seems genuinely fascistic. Hot take, I guess, but I don't think that people should be arrested and charged with terrorism for holding cardboard signs that say "I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action."

Meanwhile, not one of the groups so far known to have been orchestrating the violence in Belfast and Southampton has been banned as a terrorist organisation.

Terrible news: the Court of Appeal has just ruled that the Government’s ban on Palestine Action is lawful. PA is now likely to lodge an appeal before the Supreme Court. So the mass arrests of peaceful people sitting with cardboard signs will continue. Because that is what terrorism looks like ...

Got into an argument on Sky a few weeks about about banning social media for teens. "But parents want it!" Sure, but that doesn't mean it will work or is a good idea! How about a serious conversation about what social media is doing to all of us, adults included? Or is that too difficult?

'We are clamping down on the harm caused by social media. 'Read all about it on the Nazi pogrom deepfake abuse website'

The Assisted Dying Bill is back? So are more benefit cuts and hounding people on disability, and an NHS going down the drain. Trans women and girls, disabled, and immigrants being rights stripped. Hate crimes up and suicide increasing. Labour are on a *very* dark path. Wake up.

Near the start of his govt Starmer put up on his Youtube vid of him prancing around on a nuclear submarine the same week as benefits and disability cuts were announced. Now Starmer's regime is bigging up military spending paid for by benefits cuts *and* a dodgy assisted dying bill is being pushed.