In 2021, deaf actress Rose Ayling-Ellis won Strictly Come Dancing. In April of this year, Mattel released a Down's syndrome Barbie doll. From 2001 to 2004, we had a blind Home Secretary in David Blunkett. There are prominent actors with disabilities in major soaps and films, and in March of this year James Martin, an actor from Northern Ireland, became the first ever person with Down's Syndrome to win an Oscar. So it's fair to say that things for the disabled are the best they've ever been and only improving, right?
Wrong. Absolutely wrong. Not even slightly right. In fact, I'd even go as far as to suggest that the constant push to get a few disabled people into positions of visibility is a deliberate smokescreen to hide what an absolute mess the Government, local councils and corporations have made of disability services in the UK. In 2019, the UN rapporteur on extreme poverty condemned the UK Government for having violated its duties to its disabled citizens through 'sustained and widespread cuts to social support'. And, although we've had three different Prime Ministers since then, that Government is still in power and these problems are still continuing to perpetuate. I think anyone who has a disability, or has a loved one who has one, will have witnessed how utterly corrosive, ableist and discriminatory disability services are. I've been following this myself for a while, but over the last year I've been able to observe some of it directly, through my involvement with the campaign to save Tudor Street Day Centre in Abergavenny.
Back in December I wrote a blog about a protest we held outside this former Hub for the disabled, which has been kept firmly locked since it was forced to close over the 2020 lockdown period, in spite of there seemingly being no particular reason the building could not be re-opened. I got involved in this campaign through my partner, author and disability rights campaigner Owen B Lewis, who before we met was a staff member at this building for nearly seven years. Shortly after coming out of lockdown, Owen wrote a novel called Vulnerable Voices, which is partly based on his experiences in this line of work (although it is absolutely a work of fiction). Watching Owen write this novel, and having the honour of meeting some of the service-users who partly inspired its characters, really shone a light to me on the importance of giving these people a regular place to go, that is safe and enjoyable, where they can make new friends and learn skills, and also potentially give their carers some respite from looking after them. Shortly after that, we learned that the Tudor Street Day Centre was to be sold off, as, in Monmouthshire County Council's opinion, it was no longer needed or desired (what has actually happened since COVID is increasing isolation for Abergavenny's disabled, and the small amount of care they are receiving largely consisting of being walked around the town and taken to cafes).
Thankfully, since that time our campaign has been quite successful. The decision to sell off the day centre was revisited, and we even got a resignation from the Cabinet Member for Social Care, Safeguarding and Accessible Health Services, when Labour's Tudor Thomas was replaced by the Green Party's Ian Chandler. There was a big review of the services undertaken by Practice Solutions, which overwhelmingly pointed to the need for a regular base for these service users as there was before (which Tudor Street is the only local building capable of providing). There have been some amazing protests, incredible speeches at council meetings and there's really a feeling of optimism amongst the campaigners. I will cautiously say that I think we have a good chance of winning this and getting the day centre re-opened.
But I'll reiterate my optimism is cautious. Because even at this stage, it will take a real fight. Monmouthshire County Council is not backing down. At a recent scrutiny meeting, Councillor Simon Howarth argued that with a bit of TLC, Tudor Street Day Centre could be re-opened within a matter of days. Needless to say, this has not happened! The council has admitted that there needs to be a better base than there is, and has shortlisted three buildings (including Tudor Street Day Centre) as potential candidates. However, all evidence suggests that the other two buildings are absolutely not fit for purpose. Councillor Sue Riley raised this point at the scrutiny meeting; it was ignored, she raised it again and then the chair actually reprimanded her for asking the same question twice! Never mind that her very relevant points had not been answered at all. Worse than that, in my personal viewpoint, is the arrogance of Monmouthshire County Council here. I do not see any evidence that Councillor Chandler is any more sympathetic to the rights and dignity of the disabled than Councillor Thomas was. I've witnessed Councillor Chandler be dismissive and condescending, both to individuals in emails and in public to all the people who passionately stated their urgent needs to get the Hub re-opened. Worse than that was the fact that many staff members, dedicated carers who the disabled rely on, were threatened against even attending that meeting. There are two major problems with this: first, this diluted the level of support for this cause that was allowed to be expressed. But worse than that, many of these carers had intended to bring service users with them in their cars. The decision to prevent these carers attending meant that there were many service users who weren't able to attend unless they had a family member who could bring them, and many don't. I'm cynical, but I wonder if this was the intention.
I've embedded a link to the scrutiny meeting below (it's about three hours long). Towards the end, the livestream was stopped when Owen and I talked over the chair and continued to question Councillor Chandler. We were berated for this quite strongly afterwards, but I absolutely stand by what we did - because the plain truth was, we simply were not being listened to. Councillor Chandler's indifference to people's feelings was such that at one point, they used the phrase 'final solution' when talking about the eventual conclusion of the review, a phrase that has well-known Nazi connotations. To be fair to Councillor Chandler, I believe that this was a genuine mistake and just a poor choice of words, rather than a deliberate dog-whistle. But still, when a slip of the tongue is that extreme it does speak to the fact that someone just isn't thinking about how they might come across to the vulnerable people in the room whose quality of life directly depends on the decision made. This comment was callous and insensitive, even if it wasn't deliberate.
I've talked at length about this particular instance purely because it's the one that I myself am actively involved in. But there are similar things happening around the country, and it has to stop. The stage adaptation of Vulnerable Voices was on in Bristol in May, generating this wonderful review. For this project, we intended to find some actors with disabilities to play the service-users, and I'm glad to say we found some amazing ones. But finding them was such a struggle. Bristol has a disability theatre company called Misfits (not the most empowering name, is it?) We contacted this company, and truthfully I felt that they were actively obstructive in helping us find local disabled talent. They were discouraging and negative in the way they interacted with us. They consistently kept us waiting a very long time to hear back from them. We weren't allowed to be introduced to any of their performers. They said they'd pass on our casting call to certain people, but I have no evidence that they did, or that they were at all positive in the way that they put this across (sometimes, particularly in the case of learning difficulties, people need a bit of encouragement to put themselves forward for things). And unfortunately, the same was true for disability acting agencies we contacted. We did in the end find some extremely talented actors with disabilities to be in our show, who did an amazing job and whom we really hope to work with again in the future - but all of them were found either through personal recommendations or through social media. No one who was supposed to be in the position of helping disabled actors find work was remotely helpful to us in this. We talk so much about the importance of representation (and it is bloody important) - but maybe the reason there isn't enough of it is that when someone is actually looking to do some, they get treated like this?
Back in January, I wrote an incredibly personal blog about the problems I have with saying that LGBTQ+ actors should play LGBTQ+ parts. In this blog, I touched on my annoyance that a lot of the people making this argument are the very people who oppressed LGBTQ+ actors in the past, who are now leaping on the bandwagon. I think the same is largely true for disability portrayals. Yes, there are a few more disabled celebrities now than there used to be - but it's just the same people popping up over and over again, and that doesn't solve a general trend within society. The most incredible example I've come across of the cynicism involved in disability casting is when a photo was taken of the set of Doctor Who, which featured a ramp on the entrance to the TARDIS. Someone in a Doctor Who Facebook page I was in said, 'Ooh, does this mean Ruth Madeley is joining the cast?' And a few months later, it was revealed that yes, she is. The fact that not only did the appearance of an accessibility ramp immediately make someone guess at a specific wheelchair user joining, but that actually that person was correct in their prediction, speaks volumes to me. I have no issue with Ruth Madeley. I actually like her as an actress, I've seen her in a few things and I always enjoy her performances. But why is it automatically assumed that a wheelchair-user in a popular TV programme in the UK will be played by her? And why do those assumptions turn out to be correct, like in this case? Is that what groups like Disabled People Against Cuts are campaigning for - one single individual with a disability to get more and more work, without any increase in the opportunities for other individuals with the same kinds of things? I don't think so.
I'm so happy for anyone who's achieved something special in their life, especially if they've really struggled to get there as a lot of disabled people have. But having a few disabled people turning up in everything and getting a hell of a lot of promotion does not make life any better for the overwhelming majority of disabled people. In fact, I think there's an argument it actually makes it more difficult, as it suggests to the public that we're improving, and we're not. We are not improving. The lives of ordinary disabled people in places like Abergavenny are far worse than they were even five years ago. We can do better than this, and we should.
The Scrutiny Meeting:
Some pictures from a recent protest (we have another coming up on Tuesday 15th August. ITV News are coming, so hopefully we'll get some decent coverage.)
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