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River

@riverlorien.bsky.social
1.1K followers 1.3K following 4.8K posts

My interests inc health, welfare & disability policy, media, hospice/palliative care, the environment & animal welfare. Happy to have left the other place :)

PostsRepliesMedia
Reposted by River
Dan Sohege @danielsohege.bsky.social · 8h
The one in one out scheme has been among some of the worst active anti-asylum policies in recent years, and it was all predictable, Among other things, it increased trafficking, caused untold mental and physical harm and led to deportations to unsafe countries. www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home...
independent.co.uk
UK’s flagship one in, one out migrant exchange deal with France to end
The one in, one out deal is being wound down, after it returned around 1,400 people back to France
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Carole Cadwalladr @carolecadwalla.bsky.social · 7h
NEW: We are one! The @thenerve.news is celebrating its first birthday today!!! With the news that we are financially sustainable!!! THANK YOU so much to the many, many people who helped us get here. Your support is everything! 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏 pressgazette.co.uk/news/the-ner...
pressgazette.co.uk
The Nerve reaches 5,000 paying subscribers in first year
Newsletter-led newsbrand from ex-Observer journalists now said to be financially sustainable.
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River @riverlorien.bsky.social · 10h
Are Disabled People Invisible? 'Andy Burnham’s speech made absolutely no mention of working-age disabled people, who make up a third of social care users and currently pay increasing care charges from benefit payments'.
disabilityrightsuk.org
Are Disabled People Invisible?
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Decahedron 🏳️‍🌈 @decahedronx.bsky.social · 16h
Seems like the plan is only for over 65s. Under 65s with disabilities have been totally ignored.
gov.uk
Prime Minister Andy Burnham sets out plans for a new National Care Service
The Prime Minister announced a new settlement for older people today: a state pension that rises every year, no personal care charges and a high-quality National Care Service to give peace of mind in ...
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Kat Smith @felineforger.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
One of the things that's most frustrating about having an "invisible" disability like ME/CFS is the judgment I get from others. I "look" fine, but you can't see I'm masking my pain and fatigue. You can't see the despair of being unable to do the simple things I used to. I "look" fine, but I'm not.
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Healthwatch @healthwatch.bsky.social · 17h
The government says “free personal care for older people”—narrower than all adults. If it excludes the full cost of residential/nursing-home care, this is closer to Scotland’s model than an NHS-style service covering all adult social care. www.gov.uk/government/n...
gov.uk
Prime Minister Andy Burnham sets out plans for a new National Care Service
The Prime Minister announced a new settlement for older people today: a state pension that rises every year, no personal care charges and a high-quality National Care Service to give peace of mind in ...
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River @riverlorien.bsky.social · 14h
This is so important... @mrjamesob.bsky.social @lbc.co.uk #lbc
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River @riverlorien.bsky.social · 14h
@mrjamesob.bsky.social @lbc.co.uk #lbc
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River @riverlorien.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Severe hardship is being caused by housing benefit cuts. "More and more families are being forced to make impossible choices daily, between feeding their family or paying their rent" @mrjamesob.bsky.social @lbc.co.uk #lbc
bigissue.com
'Terrified of rent increase': How housing benefit cuts hit renters
The government froze local housing allowance, which effectively meant a real-terms cut to housing benefit. This is what it means for renters
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EndMalnutritioninME @malnutritionme.bsky.social · 16h
Many people with severe and very #severeME do not receive enough care time to meet their basic daily needs of eating, drinking, washing, and toileting. People with #ME need recovery time between these activities and care visits do not allow for this.
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River @riverlorien.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Ending the triple lock to fund social care 'would also potentially mean taking money away from some of the poorest pensioners – those with no assets whose only income is the state pension – to fund the care of the richest whose assets, which could be worth millions...would remain untouched.'
newstatesman.com
Labour wants to fix social care – but who will pay for it?
The perennial question of British politics is back
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Adam @abrokenbattery.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
“They’re the victims of this, but then they’re victimised for the sin of having this illness.” George Monbiot on why government and society as a whole need to stop gaslighting people with #MECFS and making them feel they’ve done something wrong.
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Adam @abrokenbattery.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Full interview (9 mins): youtu.be/H2rRf_f2hJs George’s recent article www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
youtu.be
LBC | Natasha Devon interview with George Monbiot
YouTube video by Broken Battery
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Adam @abrokenbattery.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Symptoms are “horrible” and severe cases are a “living nightmare.” @georgemonbiot.bsky.social speaks to @natashadevon.bsky.social on LBC about ME/CFS, its long history of being dismissed and psychologised, and the role of governments and insurers.
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Saul Staniforth @saulstaniforth.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Govt minister Josh MacAlister claims unemployed young people are paid with PIP to be out of work. Except PIP isn't an out of work benefit, plenty of people who receive PIP are in work & PIP enables them to do that. Josh knows this. What hes doing is whipping up anger towards disabled people.
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Gemma Clark 🧿🕯️ @gemmaclark.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Homophobes are very grateful to the transphobes who pathed the way for this. The racists can’t wait to get their turn. It’s only a matter of time. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
bbc.co.uk
Christian 'discriminated' against in job retraction over LGBT views, court hears
Felix Ngole was rejected for a job after his potential employer discovered his views on homosexuality.
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Sean Jones KC @seanjones.org · 29/09/2026
The rush to speculate that asylum seekers are responsible for every crime in the news is a sort of opportunistic informational terrorism. Until it’s disproved it stokes fear and hatred. When it is disproved there are no adverse consequences and they know that they only have to be lucky once.
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Royal College of Nursing @rcn.org.uk · 29/09/2026
The Home Secretary is right to recognise that her planned reforms on leave to remain are seen as unfair. They're also a direct threat to the success of a new national care service. (1/2) ⬇️
theguardian.com
Shabana Mahmood hints she could water down plans on leave to remain
Home secretary under pressure over changes that would make it harder for foreign workers to claim permanent residence
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River @riverlorien.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Ending the triple lock to fund social care 'would also potentially mean taking money away from some of the poorest pensioners – those with no assets whose only income is the state pension – to fund the care of the richest whose assets, which could be worth millions...would remain untouched.'
newstatesman.com
Labour wants to fix social care – but who will pay for it?
The perennial question of British politics is back
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River @riverlorien.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Linking the end of the triple lock to social care funding is a problematic framing. It looks as though pensioners who may well have no private pension (or housing capital) will be made poorer to protect the inheritance of others. @mrjamesob.bsky.social @lbc.co.uk #lbc
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River @riverlorien.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
There's huge inequality *between* pension groups. IFS, 19th July 2024: 'Pensioner material deprivation – a measure of the household’s inability to afford key essentials – rose from 6% (700, 000 pensioners) in 2019–20 to 8% (1 million pensioners) in 2022–23' @mrjamesob.bsky.social @lbc.co.uk #lbc
ifs.org.uk
How have pensioner incomes and poverty changed in recent years? | Institute for Fiscal Studies
This report examines the key trends in pensioner incomes and poverty over the past two decades.
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Special Needs Jungle @spcialndsjungle.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
There are just 15 days left until Tee-Jay’s petition to protect SEND legal rights closes on 14th October. We need to get 16,000 more signatures. Will you help us get there? petition.parliament.uk/petitions/76...
petition.parliament.uk
Petition: Protect legal right to support for children with SEND
A petition created by a British citizen or UK resident. You can share this petition if you agree with its message.
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evacide @evacide.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Meta Muse appears to read your Apple messages and upload them to the cloud even if you explicitly tell it not to: appleinsider.com/articles/26/...
appleinsider.com
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Dean Hochlaf @dhochlaf.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
You came into power and raised the cost of employing people, especially for entry level jobs and have been non-stop talking about how amazing AI is to boost productivity, which in reality comes through reducing entry level roles, and now have decided the cause of youth unemployment is welfare
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Helen Barnard @helenbarnard.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
7/10 people turning to food banks are disabled, many have already trodden this path - Become ill/disabled - Tried to sustain work, often with very little support - Ended up out of work for health reasons. - Route back in feels very uncertain. - Severe hardship is now worsening health. 3/4
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Gillian Martin @gillmartin.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Ed Miliband says, "To the millions in this country.. who have been moved & outraged by the plight of the Palestinian people, we hear you. You were right" So scrap the proscription of PALESTINE ACTION, boycott Israeli goods, stop supplying weapons parts & usIing the RAF to assist the IDF.
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Resolution Foundation @resolutionfoundation.org · 26/07/2026
Is welfare spending ''out of control''? It's estimated to be 11.1 per cent of GDP this financial year. That's just 1.1 per cent of GDP higher than in 2007-08, and total welfare spending has actually fallen by 0.9 per cent of GDP since 2012-13 ⤵️
chart showing Social security spending as a proportion of GDP, by category: GB
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River @riverlorien.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
BSA: public support for disability benefits "remains remarkably strong." “Very few people favour cuts, disabled people are seen as among the most deserving recipients of support, and proposals to reduce disability benefits appear politically risky across the political spectrum.”
theguardian.com
Majority of Tory and Reform voters do not back cuts to disability benefits, survey finds
Nearly half of respondents say spending on personal independence payments should be increased
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The i Paper @theipaper.com · 27/09/2026
‘Stuff of nightmares’: UK cuts aid to UN’s Gaza food operations by 78% "In March, the then foreign secretary Yvette Cooper told the Commons: “We are fully protecting our allocation to Palestine.” 🔴 @janemerrick23 and @singharj reports Read more: trib.al/r47S6DS
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Katie Schmuecker @katieschmuecker.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Good quality jobs, adjustments at work, help to move into work, healthcare and lower housing costs, these are the things that will ease the pressure on social security - as @jrf-uk.bsky.social has argued. We need a strong safety net not one weakened by cuts.
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Jon Featonby @jonfeatonby.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Safe and legal routes are a good thing, and welcome that Mahmood is going to be saying this later today. But, has to been seen in the context that arrivals will be in the hundreds, and the Government have shut down the Afghan scheme and refugee family reunion. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
theguardian.com
UK to open new refugee resettlement routes for Afghan women and Palestinians
Exclusive: Move by Shabana Mahmood comes after closure of Afghan scheme last year but experts say numbers too small to deter Channel crossings
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River @riverlorien.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
'A good death...is about having the right care, in the right place, which is often at home, and ensuring nobody faces the end of life feeling frightened, unsupported or alone.' 'MPs, you told us clearly that end-of-life care in the UK is broken. So now we need you to fix it'
theguardian.com
MPs, you told us clearly that end-of-life care in the UK is broken. So now we need you to fix it | Jane Turner
During the assisted dying debate, most politicians agreed on one thing – palliative care reform is urgent. Patients and those of us who care for them are waiting, says Jane Turner, chief nurse at Sue ...
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Paul Bernal @paulbernal.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
See, making young people’s lives better, improving their life chances and giving them more opportunities, *that* could be a ‘moral crusade’. Changing U.K. benefits for young people is just about saving rich people’s money.
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Sarah Murphy @13sarahmurphy.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
The Times - which has v much joined in the rightwing clamour to reduce immigration - now reporting that Mahmood’s “success” has cost the economy £4- to £7Bn. Would they like to now honestly confirm that fewer people = less spending power for all. There’s a high price to pay for this nasty obsession.
Patrick Maguire
Chief Political Commentator Oliver Wright Policy Editor

Falling migration numbers could cost the chancellor as much as £7bn in fiscal headroom as he writes his first budget, The Times has been told.
Government insiders believe that John Healey, who already faced an uphill battle to balance the books next month, is likely to have an even bigger challenge after immigration undershot projections from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR).
The Institute for Fiscal Studies think tank estimated last month that the success of Shabana
Mahmood's
reforms, which have cut net migration to the low hundreds of thousands, could cost Healey some £4bn.
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I Am Incorrigible @imincorrigible.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
AI stripped Wikipedia's content for free. Now it's siphoning off its visitors too. The donations that keep it running are disappearing. This is what extraction without compensation looks like.
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Dan Sohege @danielsohege.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Labour is not opening new safe routes. This latest measure is reopening a route they closed and making it more restrictive. This follows claiming they were opening new community sponsorship and work/study routes which already existed but they made harder to access. It's smoke and mirrors. #r4today
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Kelly @broadwaybabyto.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
People aren’t faking their disabilities, they’re faking being well. We know society hates us. We know we will be judged for using assistive devices. Many of us take years to get the courage to lean in to accommodations. Stop judging. Help us build a more inclusive world.
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Sarah Murphy @13sarahmurphy.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Tom Tugendhat in Sunday Times insists on leaving the ECHR to tackle “soaring” immigration. What a miserable rat. Lying to us all. Betraying our country’s best interests. Threatening to flounce out of our human rights framework, trashing our treaties and torching our protection from abuses of power.
The Tories are planning to make the ECHR a dividing line at the next election. Last week the party announced plans to deport every foreign criminal, apart from those convicted of the most trivial offences, and said their plan for ECHR withdrawal meant only the Conservatives were equipped to take on the problem of soaring immigration. One of the problems withdrawal would create is a legal dispute over whether it breaches the Good Friday agreement, which committed the UK to fully incorporate the ECHR into Northern Ireland's justice system. Tugendhat said the issue had not yet been raised in his conversations with lawmakers in the US, adding:
"There's a lot of work to be done."
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George Eaton @georgeeaton.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Your regular reminder that UK taxes are average by western standards and low on middle-earners. Labour figures, especially, should not fall into the trap of pretending that we have a “high” tax burden and that taxes are to blame for the living standards crisis. www.arguably.uk/p/the-tax-tr...
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River @riverlorien.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Brilliant thread 🧵
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Dan Sohege @danielsohege.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Deliberately leaving neurodivergent waiting years for a diagnosis is sickening. Imagine if this was other forms of diagnosis, and the uproar it'd cause. Yet again, we are treated as if we don't matter, as if we don't exist. We need more investment into diagnosis. www.theguardian.com/society/2026...
theguardian.com
NHS bodies in England impose two-year minimum wait for ADHD and autism assessments
Patient groups decry ‘scandalous’ delays as four integrated care boards take step due to soaring demand for diagnoses
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River @riverlorien.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
There are new reports that the govt may remove PIP from ill and disabled people who happen to pass pension age - even though many will have lived for years in poverty. The extra daily costs of disability don't suddenly disappear with age. @mrjamesob.bsky.social @lbc.co.uk #lbc
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River @riverlorien.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
The ramping up of public resentment & doubt by pretending that disabled people are 'handed' untold privileges is deeply cruel. Life is often already much harder - with potential pain, exhaustion, isolation, loss of career & lower income - without these toxic lies. @mrjamesob.bsky.social #lbc
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River @riverlorien.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
Children shouldn't be able to make vocational choices at 14 that effectively exclude them from Russell group type entry if that's what they decide later on. Everyone should be given the breadth of education to take either route at 18 and beyond. @mrjamesob.bsky.social @lbc.co.uk #lbc
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River @riverlorien.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Overcrowding in A&E departments and treating patients in corridors is linked to hundreds of deaths every week in the UK. Dr Ian Higginson, president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine: "This should be cause for alarm among policymakers, and yet we are not seeing any urgency."
news.sky.com
Overcrowding in A&E linked to 'hundreds of deaths a week', study finds
A review of more than 19,000 adult patients found that for every 10% increase in emergency department occupancy, the chance of dying in the following 28 days increased by 1%.
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Marcus Chown @marcuschown.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
All the right-wing parties are vying for the cruel vote. And our right-wing media is making people crueller by convincing them it's the poor and vulnerable who are getting everything not the millionaires and the tax-dodgers.
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George Monbiot @georgemonbiot.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Here's today's column on the astonishing, ongoing mistreatment of people with #ME/CFS. Please spread it far and wide: the only thing which can break the media's wall of indifference is seeing an article about the issue go viral. Thank you. 1/2 www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
theguardian.com
Abandoned, dismissed and gaslighted: there is no excuse for the way ME sufferers have been betrayed | George Monbiot
Changes in guidance and science seem to have little impact on millions of devastated lives. It’s a social crisis playing out behind closed doors, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot
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Anonymous @opdeatheaters.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Meta glasses are being used for covert harassment and group stalking. Women and girls are being secretly filmed in streets, schools, restaurants and on dates, then uploaded for millions of strangers. Police inquiries now span worldwide. #OpDeathEaters
yacnews.com
Meta glasses used to film women and girls without consent from Seoul to Barcelona as police cases mount worldwide
Police and prosecutors across France, Spain, South Korea, Japan and the U.S. have opened cases against men accused of secretly filming women and girls with Meta glasses. The only warning victims have ...
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River @riverlorien.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Miliband: “We face an El Niño that is already set to be the most intense in living memory.” “This will intensify climate shocks that compound and cascade across borders, threatening food and water security, displacing communities, putting pressure on markets and scarring economies.”
theguardian.com
UK shares findings of damning climate crisis national security report suppressed under Starmer
El Niño poses critical threat to nations’ defences, says Ed Miliband in presentation to global foreign ministers
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Prem Sikka @premnsikka.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
There is a lot of misinformation about the UK social security spending. The chart below shows Total UK social security spending as a percentage of GDP, 2013/14 to 2030/31 (spending & forecast) 55% goes to pensioners, the remainder covers everything else. lordslibrary.parliament.uk/welfare-refo...
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