Monthly Archives: April 2012

Old age is coming, but where are my carers?

Beneath the show of senility, I remain the palpitating boy who never wanted a pension

Saturday 21 April 2012

So at what age should you start salting money away for carers? You hope, of course, that all those on whom you’ve showered love will gather round at the last to shower it back, but what if you haven’t showered all that much, or what if you would much rather, anyway, have strangers deal with the gibbering, dribbling satire on yourself you’ve been reduced to?

The state’s no use. The state, we now know, sends around people with PhDs in heartlessness who can’t understand why they’re not on The X Factor or drawing salaries commensurate with their ineptitude, as bankers do. And who would want a banker or a Beyoncé manqué refusing to clean up your mess and deliberately forgetting which tablets you are supposed to take? I leave out such acts of routine abuse as locking you in your room and turning on the gas, or putting a pillow over your face while singing “Love on Top” – those being the upside of state care.

350,000 children ‘will lose free school meals in welfare reform’

Children’s Society says coalition’s universal credit, as currently envisaged, seems a step backward

 

Free school lunches are the main meal of the day for many children, says the Children’s Society. Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian

More than 350,000 children will lose their free school meals under the government’s radical plans to reform welfare entitlement next year, an analysis by the Children’s Society has warned.

In a report entitled Fair and Square, the charity says the proposed universal credit system, which comes into force in October 2013, will stop paying for certain benefits if a household earns more than £7,500.

At present the welfare system compensates poor families with cash from the tax credit system.

Autistic man’s ‘care’ bill not fair, says dad

By Helen Morton

5:00pm Friday 20th April 2012

DISABLED people are soft targets for cash-strapped councils, an autistic man’s father says.

 John and Kevin Kearney

 

Kevin Kearney, of Western Way, South Ham, Basingstoke, suffers from autism and struggles with communication, and for most of his life he has been attending courses which allow him to learn new skills.

Currently, he attends courses four times a week, all of which are partly funded by Hampshire County Council and for which he does not pay. But Kevin has been told by the county council that he must pay £23.94 every week towards ‘care services’.

The 39 year-old, who lives with his parents in Basingstoke, does not receive, or need, any care at home.