THE HULME TUNE

Ouch, hit a nerve.? Hope it hurts more than my tooth Mr Brown!

On Wednesday 9th January BBC North West Today & Tonight did a report about the 1 in 5 people in the NW who claim Incapacity Benefit and are stereotyped by the Government as lazy system fiddlers. They came and filmed me speaking about my view. Even though the report was good, I felt I needed to say more about my experiences and frustrations about the Government’s treatment of us.

Many of us, who have disabilities/injuries and claim Incap, are living productive lives and do voluntary work - unpaid work - when our disability/injury allows us, to keep charities running. In simple terms, we suffer this exploitation to help our communities and our country. We could stay at home and do nothing! Millions of people wouldn’t even dream of working for free - when did Gordon Brown do any volunteering this year? When did David Cameron help his local community unpaid and not for publicity or political gain? So, please do think about that.

I, myself, volunteer (when I can) for the British Red Cross, ALLFM and this website - I put back into my community when the pain is less noticable! Why doesn’t this Government reward us instead of punishing us? Why don’t they give us help with education, training, resourses, expenses and any needed equipment? They could reward us for attending educational courses and training. But, they rather punish us and make us 3rd class citizens and make us suffer even more.

All this I do so I can gain confidence, help towards my recovery, manage my disability and hopefully get back into full time work and contribute to society.

Stepping Stones may help those who are already trained, but I find they are of no help when needing training. That’s my finding. All this Government is interested in is keeping their figures down and they don’t care how. Statistics, are we? Human being, I am! This Government just wants to brag about how they got people off Incap into jobs, low paid minimum wage posts, and they, like David Cameron, just doesn’t care how they accomplish it. EDUCATION, RESOURSE, UNIVERSITY POSTS, REAL PROPER TRAINING, EQUIPMENT and FUNDING is the answer.

HOLD ON! Are you 18-24yrs..?? “No?” What a pitty, as the Government is throwing millions at the young; at the same time the older disabled people, who’ve contributed to this country, are put on the shelf to collect dust - well, left to sweep it up in a dead end job. Isn’t there “Age Descrimination” now? Government exempt again from that one?

Even Government training initiatives are not working. Another image for the press as the MP’s all smile. “Look at us, aren’t we great at forcing disabled people down another dead end street” Then the scheme ends, the Government takes our money away and we still don’t get the opportunities - no experience, certificate or college not recognised. Still, I’m not relying on this or any Government… I’ll make it wether or not!

This is my reply blog:

BBC NWT reply blog

Oops! I said, “restrict” instead of “un-restricted” when mentioning education and 15 hours.. sorry!

On Saturday 5th January, ex-cons and ex-criminals, came up from London, to tell the kids from Hulme about their lives and how God had changed them from sinner to saint.

What you don’t see are the kids - not to protect their identity but because of British law… stupid though it may be.

Tough Talk

Here at last is the Christmas Market part 2 video!

Christmas Market pt 2

Yesterday afternoon 2 fire engines were called to the FCUK store in St Anne’s Square in the centre of Manchester. The reason was a small explosion in their air ventilation system, situated on the roof, which caused burning to wiring that set off the fire alarm.

The store was closed for a couple of hours and then re-opened.

It looks like the rich are priviledged in Hulme when it comes to dental treatment. The last of the NHS dentists on Royce Road, Hulme, is now refusing to treat people on the NHS. This means that those unemployed, on low income and anybody else who are entitled to treatment on the NHS have to travel outside the area.

Nobody told me that changes were being made until I got tooth ache. Even Hulme Library were unaware of the change as I ask them for a list of NHS dentists and Royce Road surgery was still at the top of the list.

I left 2 messages on Councillor Nigel Murphy’s telephone yesterday. The message was asking him what they intend to do about this situation - seeing that it is Labour in power and this is their mess.

This is not mere teething problems for the Government, they have known the situation for a long time. My suggestion is that they build Hulme a NEW dental practice and bring in qualified dentists from Poland & other European countries and make a law compelling dentists to treat so many patients on the NHS and make the process easier.

The nearest Dentist in Hulme is the Kath Lock Centre in Moss Side.

We need more NHS dentists NOW!

Thieves struck at Hulme Garden Centre sometime on the evening of Thursday 15th November. The Manager, Hannah Powell, contacted The Hulme Tune and said, “Me and another member of staff came in to find out that the water pipes have been cut and 3 of the 4 copper stand pipes have been stolen along with taps. So we have no water supply now. They smashed a couple of planted sinks in the tunnel too for the hell of it.”

The police are currently getting 30-40 calls a day as Copper is now worth £4K a ton. This and lead is being taken all over the place masts roofs and cables, there has been £1 million worth of damage just in Collyhurst over the last few months!

Here is the WebConnect video report.

Hulme Copper Steal

Hannah is appealing to Hulme community for any help towards replacing the water pipes and stands as the Garden Centre is a non-profit making community organisation. You can ring Hulme Garden Centre on 0161 227 8198