On Wednesday they take away #AssistancetoLive. On Friday -today - they may give #AssistanceToDie. On Wednesday they take away our Personal Independence. They make us dependent. They take support away from unpaid carers on whom we depend. 🧵 On Friday they look set to give people who feel dependent – a burden – a way out. In just a few days they go from #TakingThePIP to #TakingOurLives.

Good news @Keir_Starmer @RachelReevesMP! You can raise more than £5bn without implementing #PathwaysToPoverty [autocorrect] or raising taxes. All you need to do is implement Labour’s Manifesto commitment to clamp down on tax legally owed but unpaid. You’re welcome! 🧵 It also says "Labour will address unfairness in the tax system..abolish non-dom status... replacing it with a modern scheme for people genuinely in the country for a short period..end the use of offshore trusts to avoid inheritance tax..."

I honeslty don't think the public & many politicians in Scotland/ Scottish MPs realise just how devastating this could be for people in Scotland & (any) @scotgov 's ability to exercise devolved power to diverge from Westminster. 🧵

https://twitter.com/RichardBurgon/status/1935336512012550399

This isn't just about a massive cut to Scotland's budget (the fact it isn't happening right away is irrelevant), but because of how closely intertwined the 2 systems are, with eligibility for devolved benefits contingent on getting reserved ones and vice versa.

How can @leicesterliz have the bare-faced cheek to trumpet support for carers while ensuring that hundreds of thousands lose their carers allowance because those they care for lose PIP😡. Increasing the earnings limit for carers allowance is a fat lot of use if you've lost it! 🧵

https://twitter.com/DWPgovuk/status/1933515031020233103

A 2024 report by Carers UK and the Centre for Care found unpaid carers in the UK provide £184.3 billion worth of care annually—equivalent to funding a second NHS! Personally I think that's more than enough. But not, it seems, for Liz and @RachelReevesMP carersuk.org/reports/valuin…

1/7 This morning I wrote to the individual who has the honour (he may consider it misfortune!) to be my MP, begging him not to support the proposed cuts to disability benefits. Here's what I said [with a few typos removed! No room to put in Alt text - DM me if needed]. 🧵 2/7 I began by recalling when I chaired the last Labour Govt's Disability Employment Advisory Committee when another 'Pathways to Work' was around, explaining why it & many other such progs don't work as expected, & why it's vital to see it from the employer's perspective.

Let me be even blunter than @danny__kruger. The private sector is driven by profit. To involve them in delivering assisted dying means making it profitable. Will they be set 'kill targets'? Will they be paid bonuses for exceeding them?

https://twitter.com/nmdacosta/status/1904470364794577306

When you introduce a profit motive & if there's more profit to be made from killing people than keeping them alive, if you turn the process into a safeguard-free zone with no meaningful oversight, guess what happens.

Here's my 1st take on @leicesterliz's statement today on proposals for disability benefits, following weeks of govt scaremongering & demonising sick & disabled people, placing their mental health under intolerable strain at the prospect of losing support they need to survive 🧵 You don't fix a broken system by making it worse. You won't stop soaring disability benefit cost unless you act to stop soaring disability & ill health due to an NHS on its knees, the ongoing consequences of a pandemic let rip, & the scale of health-destroying poverty.

This is a long 🧵 on Assisted Dying. It’s a topic that I, like many others, have wrestled with. For me it hinges on the nature of coercion & what that in turn means for genuine freedom of choice. It begins with this poster which I find deeply troubling but also illuminating. My wish is that no one I love should ever choose to end their life because they feel they’re a burden. My wish is also that those responsible for this messaging, who say they aim to end suffering, understood how much suffering this may cause to people already in great distress.

With huge thanks to @KatyMcconkey for the tip-off I have dug up this original post. It's almost like they knew Covid is airborne and thought it was important everyone else knew it too! I dug a bit deeper... 🧵

https://twitter.com/NHSuk/status/1467816729220984834

...I found images from the whole "Stop Covid-19 Hanging Around" advert campaign story board! Would you like to see them? Ok 👇. Now guess where I found them...

You know the rise in Covid must be bad when @BBCNews feels the need to say it isn't. Yet another great case study of minimisation & manipulation. Here's a thread on how they do it. Sorry it's long. Even so it's just a quick recap on a few key tactics 🧵bbc.co.uk/news/articles/… Are we in a Summer Covid wave? "It's difficult to tell..We no longer collect national data..as far less testing takes place now. That means many cases of Covid are not being recorded." Hang on to this. One thing they do is include contradictory statements without joining the dots

Final impact statements @covidinquirysco health & social care module today & tomorrow. None on the impact on CV people. It seems not only is our continued existence - our continued clinical vulnerability to continuing Covid - to be denied, we're to be written out of history😡🧵 You'd think the Inquiry would prioritise the people most vulnerable to severe illness & death from Covid, at greatest risk when protections were removed & most likely to need health & soc care; people still leading restricted precarious lives & more likely to die. You'd be wrong

Ok @guardian. Why are you publishing this unscientific, damaging, discriminatory rubbish? Why the wholly misleading headline? Why on #LongCovidAwarenessDay of all days? You have some serious explaining - & apologising - to do 🧵
theguardian.com/society/2024/m… The ‘study’ this dreadful article concerns is pre-peer review & pre-publication, even as a pre-print.

https://twitter.com/dgurdasani1/status/1768585080128291295

Landmark legal action – could be the first of many. Not just health boards but governments have failed to take Long Covid seriously – probably the biggest mass disabling event in the UK in our lifetimes - and it's still destroying lives. bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotla… Why are children still getting very ill from Covid & other preventable airborne infections? Why's nothing being done, though we now know Covid causes long-term bodily damage, dysregulates immune systems making it harder to fight off other infections, & reinfection makes it worse?

No, @jasonleitch, the removal of requirements to wear masks, and in social care settings the personal choice to wear them, is about as far from ‘a good thing’ as it is possible to get. Please allow me to explain why. No, don’t thank me, you’re welcome! 🧵bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotla… It’s not a good thing that people who are still clinically vulnerable will have no choice but to go into – even live in – unsafe environments where they run serious risk of being exposed to a life-changing/ ending virus. Whatever happened to the human right to life?

Am shaking with rage & shock. @SMS_plc guy arrived to fit smart meter not wearing a mask despite me making v clear when booked that essential due to my high clinical risk. Said he was exempt. I said I was sorry but unfortunately that meant he wasn't able to come into the house & told him I'd made that clear when booking. He said I'd have to reschedule as he'd need to touch plugs, etc. I told him that was ok, Covid doesn't spread by touch [even if it did, easily rectified]. He insisted it was, I said no, in fact it wasn't, whereupon he angrily

Yesterday was my last day as @TheSCoSS Chair. Public appointees are rightly constrained in what they can say publicly. Now I'm not, there’s a lot I want to say on a lot of things! Thought I’d start with a wee🧵on personal reflections on my time with SCoSS & things to look out for It’s been an extraordinary time since @TheSCoSS opened for business early 2019. Scottish social security barely existed except on paper. It’s sprung to life & learnt to walk, last week taking its biggest step yet with Adult Disability Payment replacing PIP.

📢 Calling people at high clinical risk, unpaid carers & people with Long Covid. On 23/6 I’m giving evidence to the Covid-19 Recovery Committee’s inquiry into the communication of public health information. What would you say to them? 🧵[grateful for retweets!] The session is on whether public health information about COVID-19 is accessible to and meets the needs of specific audiences going forward, including people in the shielding category and communities where there has been below average uptake in vaccination to date

Dear @HumzaYousaf @DrGregorSmith @JasonLeitch @JohnHardenED Yesterday you published evidence you claim ‘clearly’ shows vaccines/new medicines mean there’s no need to retain the Highest Clinical Risk list, It’s far from clear to me. Please confirm my understanding 🧵 Evidence on vaccine efficacy consists of incomplete summaries of studies measuring different things using different methods, & includes studies that haven’t been peer reviewed. As you say “Many studies in this annotated bibliography will have several limitations”. Yes they do.

Many thanks for the support & ideas in response to my ideas on a #InclusiveNewNormal. This summarises the strategic framework & key messages. I hope it’s a helpful contribution– far from the last word. It’ll need everyone’s commitment, creativity, determination – and coproduction The vision for a safe, fully #InclusiveNewNormal is for one which recognises our equal humanity, human worth, rights & freedoms. It’s one that supports all of us to live a good life rather than normalises frequent, avoidable death & long-term illness.