Travelling down Oxford Circus at the best time is quite a grim journey, albeit by foot or by car, but last Saturday visitors to one of the busiest roads in the country had an extra problem to contend with; A line of disabled people in wheelchairs chained together in order to cause disruption.
After details of the day’s activity was released online people were asked to congregate at Holborn Tube Station for 11.30am with their Oyster Cards (Should that have read Freedom Cards as well?) where they would be asked to travel to Oxford Circus, although at the time the location was kept a secret for obvious reasons.
Around midday, the secret was out and 300 people gathered at the junction, some with drums, some chanting, and some waving placards but all there for one reason.
Despite police attempting to move the protestors by shouting out orders over loudhailers, their actions were overshadowed, the protestors refused to move on until two hours later.
A large percentage of those who took part in Saturday’s protest told the press it was the first time they had been involved in such action, but they were so angry with the planned cuts they felt they should participate.
One protestor blamed the media for the cuts. He said,
“The tabloids have created this idea that we're scroungers or fakers. This has allowed the government to do this – I think disabled people are seen as a good scapegoat."
To equal out the story we need to wrap up with the reply which came from the Department for Work and Pensions,
"Households where someone receives disability living allowance will be exempt from the benefit cap, and we are giving local authorities an additional £190m over four years to ensure vulnerable people are supported through the housing benefit reform, so we are not expecting people to become homeless.
"The introduction of the universal credit, from 2013, will see a simpler and fairer system of support for disabled people.
"More importantly, there will be no cash losers at the point of transition to universal credit, and disabled adults in greatest need and severely disabled children will receive more support than now." A spokesman said.
Saturday’s protest was the first in a series of demonstrations which will take part over the next few months in response to the future of the new disability allowance. If it goes ahead 500,000 families could lose their homes. 500,000 will lose their disability allowance and 3.2 million disabled people will face cruel and degrading tests.
If you are interested in joining one of the protests which are being planned go to our Facebook page for all the dates and locations.
