I did a very quick crude search for string "disab" on Fri 16th April 2010 in the manifesto PDFs of the Conservatives, Greens, Labour and Lib Dems and later I did UKIP too for the lolz. We failed to find anything on BNP and their website was scary like their undesirable policies! What they say is listed in alphabetical order by party and then order which stuff is said in the manifesto. I've added my comments where appropriate. I've got a fair idea of who is getting my vote and it probably shows - I don't apologise for this.
This was originally written (but has since been added to) for a non-public blog and may not be as tactful or well written as it should be cos I was annoyed with the BBC. I'm shoving it on my website as I'd like to link other people to it as and when. Most of this written on 16th and 17th April 2010.
Conservative, Green, Labour, Lib Dems, UKIP.
I'd planned on watching the BBC iPlayer stream of the Prime Ministerial Debate but the Dear Old BBC fouled up the subtitles from the start on both the streaming and downloadable versions.
ITV don't do subs as they're currently peddling a lie about "technical problems" and watching it in FireFox in Linux only gives me sound and no video. I don't have $ky so can't watch it there and they seem to want to charge me to view on their player!
The BBC have received complaints from myself and other deaf people and I will be writing more to them today expressing my annoyance now I can do it without swearing throughout. I have spoken to someone at the BBC information line at 16:34 on 03700100222 called Sarah who said she would report the subtitle problem to the iPlayer team (I did have to explain it was being broadcast and available online from BBC, ITV and $ky even though the first broadcast was made by ITV and the other two will be made by $ky and then BBC). I don't expect success from this but I can't say I didn't try! The information line is 24/7 so I shall use that next time I see a glitch as well as webforms.
A transcript of the 15th April debate can be found at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/16_04_10_firstdebate.pdf thanks to Deaf-UK-Technology people for pointing me at it.
Conservative manifesto - low res which is the one I used
A high res version of the Conservative manifesto
120 pages total.
Well that's tokenistic surely? I mean the whole Child Trust Fund thing was always a bit tokenistic politicking bollocks? £250 woo drop in the ocean for disabled kids! Not a lot of use to them when they might need the money most.
Some scary wording on people refusing to take work - which makes me uncomfortable cos I don't trust the government to make the testing fair and nothing yet about genuine societal and employer barriers to employment for disabled people. Paternalistic tone. Lumping disabled people in with doleys.
So somehow recognising civil partnerships and favouring them and marriages in society with the tax system will fix other inequalities and make more equal oppoprutnities! W T F?
I think this is saying that they won't scrap DLA. But old people don't GET DLA, they get a poor imitation in the form of attendance allowances.
I liked the sound of that until they said where the funding came from. From what I hear internal government funding of disabled stuff is like AtW, hit and miss. And hang on, £1 million - that's not very much at all. A Deaf BSL user can need 20-50k of support in a year! Equipment for a blind person can cost £10,000 every few years. And there's more to supporting disabled people than throwing money at us. Nice idea tho - maybe someone else could steal it and implement it vaguely properly. I *DO* like this idea, only the Greens have anything similar in proactive ideas and attitude.
Do they make these titles up to MAKE them sound really hardcore and scary? The policy sounds good to mention disability in poverty and aid - the rest of it sounds scary and right wing tho.
Accessible versions at http://www.conservatives.com/Policy/Manifesto.aspx in PDF and audio from website with a phone number 020 7984 8158 and email contact warren.tarling@conservatives.com to get braille, large print, easy read and a copy of the audio.
Why they can't just just upload them as a matter of course I don't know. I have emailed for a copy of the LP and Easy Read on Sat 17th Apr 2010. I await a response.
They don't seem to have any specific policies for disabled people a search on their website links to to news articles and David Cameron talking about his son. Trying a search on policy section is the same. Clicking on "Women and equality" takes you to http://www.conservatives.com/Policy/Where_we_stand/Women_and_Equality.aspx which seems very women focussed then has stuff about disability which is a bit weird if you ask me. Repeats the stuff I've mentoned above.
http://www.greenparty.org.uk/assets/files/resources/Manifesto_web_file.pdf
48 Pages total
Good general equality statements are a basic good idea even if they don't necessarily translate to practice.
Not sure why disability is in this paras unless it's for disabled pensioners... Or acknowledging that disabled people and carers may have been unable to pay contributions? I fully admit to not understanding pensions at all.
Interesting idea Also in section cancelling private contracts for assessment for DWP benefits which sounds good in instinctive "grr" but I don't know if that is Actually A Good Idea TM in practice. The NHS might not be able to handle this any better. I do have issues with DWP contracts penalising the companies for every person they mark as disabled so they incentivise "you're not disabled" as a default as I assume if it changes at appeal the contractor still gets their "bonus".
It does at least realise that there is trust that needs promoting! Stuff about acknowledging disabled people in areas of asylum and disabled people receiving other kinds of discrimination. I would say this was vaguely promising as only the Greens and LibDems actually talk about disabled people in a social model sense rather than "doley scum" or in a paternalistic way.
What does that mean? It sounds nice and fluffy. The next para about ending stigma against people with mental health stuff in employment sounds better but again how? Again all good stuff I'd like to see ow they'd do it.
More or less what I'd expect for Greens anyway but good to see committment to making them accessible. And ASAP please, none of this "oh in 15 years" crap which means we have to mess about still expected to travel but unable to do it properly.
This sounds nice in theory but as I was about to say above, what would the level be determined at? Would it become this thing where using cars is shameful? You don't have to be very disabled in some ways for public transport even in an ideal world to be completely spoon eating or difficult. At times I have been so ill as a direct result of my disabilities that I have been unable to walk more than 100m yet that's not my permanent state and getting benefits or official documentation of it would be impossible. I relied on partner + car to be able to do basic things like seeing my family.
They don't seem to have anything specific, their manifesto downloads from their main policy page which has HTML sections with more... sections after each one. You can see this at http://www.greenparty.org.uk/policies.html. This is a shame but may be due to finances as I assume they have less money than the Con, Lab and LibDems. They also say that people can check their archived policy to back up their manifesto.
They have a disability manifesto in PDF from 2001 at http://policy.greenparty.org.uk/downloads/mfssdy.pdf shame that it's a horrible 3-column thing which isn't easy to read.
http://www2.labour.org.uk/uploads/TheLabourPartyManifesto-2010.pdf
78 Pages total + bookmarking in the PDF which I think improves accessibility.
So basically starts off by what they are going to make us disabled people do! Saving money from those dole claiming disabled scroungers!
I'm not convinced this is much better, what does "supported employment" mean? No mention of recognition of society disabling us. Nothing for people whose conditions can fluctuate or indeed who have excellent days but not at a level which allows us to function well enough to keep jobs and so on. Not to mention governmental departments wouldn't know 'simple english' if it smacked them in the face. My language impairment is mild but I can't fill in forms from DWP, JCP or HMRC without help!
As if the legislation alone will solve it. I don't know about new Equality bill, haven't got my head around it yet - but the DDA does nothing for me as a person with poor health who has high workplace sickness. I am constantly at risk of being too sick to keep my job yet too well to get legitimate benefits. Part time jobs are a joke, no progression, AND you have bureaucratic crap to do as well - not enough spoons error.
Yes but why? £100 is a drop in the ocean of expenses disabled children face - tokenistic at best. Make society treat us better. Make benefits more automatic without so much crap. Ensure support is pushed at people and not left being for those who fight hardest. Not £100 which is nothing!
Good aim. Also talks about the statementing process and making it better. Doesn't say for mainstream tho, refers to specialist schools... Not sure this is terribly coherent. Sometimes people end up with specialist schools because they know inclusion in mainstream for people with LDs and for example deafness is often a joke!
Again, all good stuff, will they actually do it - they haven't in the last 13 yrs. I have been an adult throughout Labour so don't know if things have got better for disabled children.
Sounds interesting, but again, why now and what does it mean?
Again combines disability quite a lot with elderly people.
I can't help feeling the tone smacks of paternalism "poor little cared for disabled people" "Oh the wonderful selfless caring carers"... Again linking with elderly people when there are some similarities but our needs aren't all the same.
Labour party has a link to accessible formats right at the bottom of their main manifesto page at http://www.labour.org.uk/manifesto/accessible . I don't understand why some of the alt formats aren't linked from website where possible instead of making people call an 0870 number.
I phoned the 0870 number, the recorded message was too fast for text relay ops so had to redial. Basically only open 9-6 Mon-Fri and 9-1 Saturdays, so will have to phone back next week to try for alt formats.
No search box which doesn't help. The drop down for Our policies doesn't work in my FireFox on Ubuntu. I managed to click on it eventually and there's no separate policy for disabled people although there's lots on other diversities.
Ah, and there's a search policies box... Results at http://www.labour.org.uk/policies/search?query=disability Equalities and disability lotsof stuff they've done and equalities bill. Jobs and Welfare again *groan*. Public health and NHS and Childcare and families.
http://network.libdems.org.uk/manifesto2010/libdem_manifesto_2010.pdf
111 Pages with an index of subjects at the back I don't know if this is fair or not. 60 doesn't seem old to me, and everything else is going up to 65. Thoughts?
All quite empowering and very social model - different from the other parties except perhaps Greens.
I don't think I could say it better myself. Very much social model followed by changes they'd like to make to improve things including flexi working for everyone not just speshul disabled people.
What I most like is the reform of Access to Work do disabled people can apply to jobs with funding already in place for equipment and adaptations we need how fucking radical is that! I bet this also includes (but I shall ask) that we OWN the sodding equipment and have rights to take it with us when we move jobs instead of running risk of having to start all over again each time. I should note it is currently technically possible to get funding in advance thoruhg AtW "emergency budget" but it's like a state secret and I found that out from an experienced big D deaf assessor who knew about it from personal experience - it's not public knowledge!
Again seems to make sense, not sure if they will do it any better than in the past but links in with wishlist projects I wish to do where I repeat this exercise for LGBT and other diversity stuff that I care about.
There is more stuff in their separate breakout policies on welfare and for "people with disabilities".
The accessible formats are linked off the main manifesto page itself at http://www.libdems.org.uk/our_manifesto.aspx which starts out with a "pick and choose" three sections out of 8 which are linked with graphics.
There are also breakdowns of the policies for PWD, Racial Equality, Families and LGBT in the right column as well as extracts from the full manifesto so the full thing or 8 sections such as 4 key policies, money, job, life, family, finances etc etc.
There is no mention of Large Print or braille, so I shall ask about those when I email them about the lack of captioning on the otherwise good videos (esp as there's jingle music over the speech!).
the separate policy on disabled people is at http://network.libdems.org.uk/manifesto2010/mini/libdem_2010_disability.pdf which I think does the job of what I have done here a bit less crudely.
Searching for disability on the website links to a short statement of values about Lib Dems policy on disabilities see http://www.libdems.org.uk/disabilities.aspx. Sadly they're shooting themselves in the foot by using the now outmoded "People with disabilities" instead of "disabled people" wording. I shall feed back that to them cos it puts off people who think that that will reflect on their policies which it doesn't in my view.
Manifesto is at http://www.ukip.org/media/policies/UKIPimmigration.pdf
16 pages total (done as an addendum to the others for the lolz) This could be good or bad, possibly good if it is like proper houses with live-in support people like semi-sheltered or lots of regular support in the community. Cos there does need to be some safety support for some kinds of vulnerable disabled ppl living in community cos many of them get terribly exploited and currently no one gives a fuck. I hope they don't mean congregate as in old asylums and mean something more like a village community or similar - again I may be wrong in thinking this is a good idea too.
Fuck knows what that means, for or against. Either could be bad or good. Inclusion does need re-examining but not taking away. Inclusion needs to mean inclusion integration on all sides and not 'good little nodding disabled people' who everyone gushes about saying 'Oh aren't they good' when they're not getting educated they're being badly babysat at best (sorry rant there - about deaf kids in mainstream sometimes but applies to many more things I am sure). If deaf kids have to learn to speak, why can't the hearies be taught some sign language to even things out!
And that is it, so basically "nice" disabled people - good that they've thought about children and people with Learning Ddifficulties (is that the right word now?) which often aren't specifically mentioned but there's nothing about equality or working to reduce the barriers to enable those of us who can to work while not penalising those of us who can't or who need mixed solutions and support for the times we can't without being seen as doley scum.
Well that was quick at least...
These don't have anything about accessible versions of their manifesto beyond a selection of extracts from the full thing. There's lots of download posters, jpegs and so on so you can print out your own versions of their publicity. All available at http://www.ukip.org/content/features/1498-downloadable-resources.
Searching for disability on their site doesn't give more than a few news articles and a link to the UKIP Welfare policy which starts with the usual worth ethic failures and breakdown of society rhetoric. see http://www.ukip.org/content/features/1498-downloadable-resources.
Conservative, Green, Labour, Lib Dems, UKIP or Back to the top
Green Party
(Had to Google this cos it wasn't immediately apparent on their website - fail)
Green Party Manifesto
Green Party Accessible Formats
Green Party general disability on website
Labour Party
Labour Party Manifesto
Labour Party Accessible Formats
Labour general disability on the website
Liberal Democrat Party
Liberal Democrat Manifesto
Lib Dem Accessible Formats
Lib Dems and general disability on website
UKIP
UKIP Manifesto
UKIP Accessible Formats
UKIP General disability on their website