Authors Electric

witness chair & lawyer's desk I walk up the shallow steps into the oddly anonymous building for the last time. For the last time the doorman opens the big glass door, smiles and greets me and I smile back, embarrassed and grateful for one last time. He’s the staff. He works here along with the friendly lady who hands me my badge and the cheerful people who see me through security and volunteer to look after my extra bag until the session’s over. They are all Black whereas most of us, arriving now, are white. This makes me feel awkward as if we’re playing out some unchosen stereotype. I’m invariably grateful to them for their kindliness and reassurance, for their welcome.  Several people are arriving with suitcases. This is the last day of hearings for Module 6 (social care) of the UK-COVID 19 Inquiry and lawyers from across the UK are poised to hurry away to catch their trains or planes home. Before they go they'll be offering their closing submissions. These are summarie...

  Plaid Cymru leader Liz Saville Roberts struggled  to hold back her tears at Prime Ministers Questions 5.1.2022 when she spoke of her fear that her mother's dementia diagnosis  would also mean separation from her family when she was moved into a care home. Now Liz is one of four MPs ready to introduce legislation  to ensure we all have the right to maintain contact with a family carer wherever we are in the health and care system Today, Monday May 8 th is National Help-Out day -- which may well mean that by tomorrow, when this blogpost is published (March 9th 2023), everyone’s impulses to benevolence will be as exhausted as the final damp squib from a village playing-field party. So maybe I’ll pitch this request as enlightened self-interest... If you have a stroke today, or a traumatic brain injury, if you develop a cognitive disability (such as a dementia) or any one of the array of incurable illnesses which will make you progressively less and less able to fe...