Mike Ervin.

AuthorErvin, Mike
PositionBOOKS

Crippled: Austerity and the Demonization of Disabled People (Verso Books), by Frances Ryan, reads like a horror story--made even scarier by the fact that it's nonfiction.

Ryan, who is disabled and writes a column for The Guardian, explores the draconian austerity policies imposed on disabled people in the United Kingdom--policies that the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities declared in a 2016 report involved "grave or systematic violations" of the rights of disabled people relying on the British social safety net for support.

"Over the course of a decade," Ryan writes, "people with disabilities, chronic illness, and mental health problems have been routinely driven into destitution, pushed from the workplace, and stripped of the right to live in their own homes."

Consider Pete, a thirty-year-old wheelchair user with cerebral palsy, who lived independently in a flat he owned, with the support of assistants, for eight years. By 2016, that support was reduced so drastically that he had to go into a nursing home.

Or David, fifty-four, who despite being disabled by anxiety and panic attacks was suddenly deemed "fit for work" and the disability income that supported him for nearly a decade was cut off. He killed himself by walking into the sea.

British conservatives, Ryan notes, "repeatedly argued that even while disability benefits were being cut, the 'truly disabled' would be protected." This is remarkably...

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