Lord Morris Died Last Week. RIP
Lord Morris of Manchester, who died this week, was the father of disability rights in the UK. From personal experience of having a father wounded in the first world war he knew that a disabled member of a family meant a disabled family and usually an impoverished one.
So much of what today we take for granted or as common sense can be traced back to the Chronically Sick & Disabled Persons Act 1970 and Morris’s other initiatives.
Elected to parliament in 1964 representing Manchester Wythenshawe, in 1969 he won the ballot to introduce a private members bill. He rejected the ready-baked bills the government offered him and introduced his own bill to improve the rights of disabled people. He was realistic in recognising that the chance of his bill becoming law was slight but it would, he thought, put disability issues on the agenda and promote publicity for disabled people at a time when they where out of sight and hardly mentioned in the press.
It is a testament to his political skill and his ability to gather support from all parts of the House including that of prime minister, Harold Wilson, that the act did became law in May 1970, the day before parliament was dissolved for the general election.
The act required local authorities to provide services to disabled people. It was the first to require public buildings to be accessible to wheelchair users and, although it proved impossible to enforce, it raised expectations. In the mid 1980s building regulations were changed to require new buildings to be accessible and by 2004, through the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, existing buildings had to be made accessible.
The act introduced the orange (now blue) badge scheme to help disabled people park their cars, which is now used by more than 2 million people. The act also required for the first time some government committees to include disabled people.
As the world’s first minister for disabled people, which he became in 1974, Morris was able to attack the issue of disability poverty. He introduced the mobility allowance, now part of disability living allowance and soon to be personal independence payment (Pip). Motability, the leading car scheme for disabled people, was also one of Morris’s initiatives. He argued that the allowance was no use unless it could be turned into actual mobility and 600,000 disabled people currently have a car through the scheme.
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I bet he lost the will to live with what the Condems are now doing to the NHS and welfare system.
They should put a statue of Alf Morris outside every ATOS assessment centre so that the lying, cheating b***ards who work in there have to see it every time they go in and out of the building. This man was truly a great MP. Not like those two modern-day muppets, Grayling and IDS. These two pathetic examples should bow their heads in shame.
Alf Morris the man with humanity for the sick and disabled but now we the torys who beat us daily with the stick called atos made by blair used widely by the the torys will you have a car when called into atos its give it back time torys costing by kicking those who cant kick back jeff3
may he rest in peace…however this shower must be made to face the damage they have done the hard way and know we wont be hushed up by these nazi thinking scum for whom the deaths so far amount to nothing…WE WILL FIGHT AND KICK THEM JUST WHERE IT HURTS…POWER TO THE DISABLED AND THE DIGNITY WE DESERVE AND SHOULD NOT HAVE TO FIGHT FOR…regards…sandra.
I was reading the tributes to Lord Morris in the Manchester Evening News the other night and amongst them, was this… “This is very sad news. Lord Morris tirelessly campaigned to improve the lives of millions of disabled people and was admired by all. He will be sadly missed.” The person whose heartfelt tribute this was?… Iain Duncan Smith! Then, can anyone tell me why is he doing his best to destroy what Lord Alf fought hard for? Hypocrite!
You see, ‘this’ is what doesnt ring true with the Camerons.
Morris knew a disability for what it was, understood the affect on reality and therefore aimed to express that knowledge through common decency.
Cameron who we are led to believe had a son with a chronic disability yet understands nothing, is callous and heartless, brutal and insane regarding any knowledge of disability.
I still believe politics is evil and anyone and anything in poltics is used to paint pictures to gain votes.
I honestly believe that precious little boy was never a Cameron and used as a sick joke to fool us all.
No parent of a child so delicate as he was would be forcing equally ill and disabled people to live in the way we all are.
Even kids with disabilities are being attacked by gov, so can you honestly believe that little boy was not a stooge for political gain?
We all know to have experienced a loss of a child through a disability would offer real compassion for others…. Yet take a goood hard look…. Cameron hates us, they all do…….
Make your own minds up but i just know deep down that kid was nothing but a tool to fool masses.