I, Daniel Blake – is this the collapse of the social contract?
Ken Loach’s most recent film I, Daniel Blake tells the story of Daniel, a fifty nine year old joiner from Newcastle, and Katie, an out of work single mother of two from London. They become perhaps unlikely friends after meeting...
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Where has all the kindness gone?
In October 2015 I wrote about the implications of the election of Jeremy Corbyn as the Labour leader standing on the pledge of a new “kinder politics and a more caring society”. I talked about the glimmer of hope offered...
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A ‘tour de force’ of obfuscation
A note on Sustainability and Transformation Plans in your brand new NHS Obfuscation is the obscuring of intended meaning in communication, making the message confusing, willfully ambiguous, or harder to understand. It may be intentional or unintentional (although the former...
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Measuring Ideology
The Work Capability Assessment (WCA), introduced in 2007 by the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) under the last Labour government, is likely to form a key component in the current Conservative government’s commitment to reducing the UK welfare bill...
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Weight stigma, neoliberalism and questions of blame
Blame and assertions of bad lifestyle choice are key components of weight stigma that people experience.
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Shame & the illegitimacy of dependency
Connecting toxic discourses to the health inequalities debate One of the many toxic features of neoliberalism is the way in which it divides the population into those considered deserving or undeserving. This was recently seen through the ‘strivers’ and ‘shirkers’...
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The Remploy Saga: the provider state isn’t providing and the enabling state doesn’t enable.
I saw Government Minister Mark Harper interviewed on my local television news the other day (BBC Look East, Jan. 12th 2015). He was talking about how, in his opinion, the closure of the last publicly owned Remploy factories was, somewhat...
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‘Normal birth’ and ‘breast is best’: the neoliberalisation of reproduction
Neoliberalism has influenced reproduction and birth in a myriad of ways. Much of this re-aapropriates feminist critiques, blunting them of their radical edge and inculcating market principles into childbirth and childcare
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Same old story: between disability and disinterest