Mark That Disabled Green Party Guy

As the Green Party’s Disability Officer and a disability housing policy expert, I have reviewed the Council’s proposed borough-wide crackdown on Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs) .  My findings, detailed in a formal letter to Cabinet Member Councillor Richard Overton, reveal a policy so deeply flawed, so casually cruel in its omission of disabled people, that it demands public condemnation. I am profoundly disappointed, but sadly not surprised, that the Labour-run Cabinet has allowed these proposals to reach public consultation. They should be deeply ashamed. Once again, in a glaring act of institutional thoughtlessness , the housing needs and rights of disabled people have been entirely omitted from their thinking. This isn’t just an oversight; it’s a failure of duty and a betrayal of some of our community’s most vulnerable residents. Let’s be clear: the technical flaws in the evidence base are severe enough to sink the proposal. The report confuses co...

A Wolf in Reformist Clothing: Dissecting the Structural Ableism of Reform UK's SEND "Vision" As a Green Party Disability Officer with three decades of experience, and as a parent who has spent 15 years battling intransigent local authorities for my neurodivergent son, and others, I watched Richard Tice’s press statement with a familiar, corrosive fury. This is not a blueprint for reform. It is a masterclass in the very structural ableism and neoliberal betrayal that has manufactured the SEND crisis. So come with me, and let’s dissect it with the critical eye that it demands. The Insidious Linguistics of Erasure Tice with his core creed: “Nobody's disabled, people are differently abled.” This phrase is not progressive; it is erasure. It is a feel-good, ablest euphemism designed to sanitise the reality of disability in a society structured against us. Disability is not a matter of “different ability”; it is an interaction between impairment and t...

A Father's Fear: Will the Government's SEND Plan Repeat Past Mistakes? I read the government’s recent £3 billion announcement on SEND with a familiar, heavy feeling. As a dad who has navigated this system with my son, and as someone now working in disability advocacy, I see a glaring gap between well-meaning headlines and the reality on the ground. This isn't just policy to me; it’s my child’s life, and the lives of thousands like him. Our journey is a case study in what works and what fails. For years, my son was stuck in mainstream education, where he was progressively sidelined. He wasn’t “included”; he was just present, often isolated and struggling. The move to a SEND Hub was a lifeline—it boosted his education and confidence dramatically. But even there, the model showed its flaws. When the Hub tried to integrate him into mainstream classes, it didn’t end well. The attitudes of some other children, reflecting prejudices learned elsewhere, made him a target...

Shaun Davies's Dangerous Demagoguery: An MP's Descent into Prejudice and Populism Shaun Davies, the MP for Telford, stood in the hallowed chamber of the House of Commons this week (8th December 2025) and did not merely ask a question. He launched a calculated, prejudiced, and deeply corrosive attack on some of his most vulnerable constituents. Under the thin veneer of concern for public spending, Davies deployed the classic tools of the demagogue: unverified anecdote, harmful stereotype, and divisive rhetoric. His performance was a masterclass in moral abdication and a grotesque betrayal of the principles he, as a former solicitor, once swore to uphold. Let’s be unequivocally clear: Davies’s intervention on the Motability scheme was not responsible scrutiny. It was a naked appeal to the basest instincts of prejudice, wrapped in the flag and delivered with the smug assurance of a man who believes his title grants him the right to diagnose and disqualify. From Solicit...

A Father, A Campaigner, And A Fob-Off From My MP Let me introduce myself. I wear two hats that, in an ideal world, wouldn’t need to exist. First, I’m the dad of an amazing, disabled child. We’ve battled for every scrap of support, navigated the labyrinth of the EHCP process, and learned that “parental choice” is often a bureaucratic fiction. Second, I’m the Disability Officer for my local Green Party, trying to channel that hard-won experience into fighting for systemic change. So when I read the proposed Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, my blood ran cold. It wasn’t abstract policy; it was a blueprint for my family’s nightmare. Like many Telford and Wrekin residents, I saw three glaring threats: the power for councils to trap a child in a harmful school, the criminalisation of exhausted parents, and a brutal, disproportionate hammer-blow to SEND families already on the brink. I wrote to our MP, Shaun Davies. I laid it out, not as a theorist, but as a father living th...

A Black Hole of Accountability What Telford & Wrekin Council’s Silence on Disability Safety Really Means Let’s cut straight to the chase. When a council proudly stamps its correspondence with “Protect, Care and Invest,” you’d expect a certain baseline of transparency, especially on a matter of life and death. Instead, what we get from Telford & Wrekin Council is a masterclass in bureaucratic evasion, wrapped in polite, redacted paperwork. The story is simple, and damning. A concerned disabilities officer writes to the Council Leader, Lee Carter, in March 2025.  His subject? The urgent, glaring, and morally indefensible lack of proper Personal Emergency Evacuation Plans (PEEPs) for disabled residents in high-rise buildings. He invokes Grenfell. He names local towers. He begs for action, specifically for Carter to lobby local MP Shaun Davies. It’s a cry for basic safety, born from a tragedy that should have changed everything. T...

A Well-Meaning Bill That Misses the Mark: Why SEND Families Are Right to Be Worried Let’s start with what’s good. The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill comes from a place we all share: a profound desire to keep children safe, support their mental health, and ensure every child gets a great education. Who could argue with promoting wellbeing, providing free breakfast clubs, or trying to stop children from slipping through the cracks? The intentions, at their heart, are noble. But as the saying goes, the road to a difficult situation is often paved with good intentions. For parents of children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND), this bill doesn’t feel like a lifeline; it feels like a threat. It risks punishing families for a system’s failure, and the debate in Parliament this week showed that, thankfully, some MPs are finally starting to hear their cries. The "Lifeline" Under Threat For many SEND families, home education isn’t a philosophical...

Telford's High-Stakes Gamble: Our Council is Betting Our Future on the Property Market! Let’s talk about our money. Specifically, let's talk about Telford and Wrekin Council's finances. On the surface, the story is a political dream. The council boasts 16 years of balanced budgets, low council tax, and a knack for winning government grants. They’ve managed to navigate over £180 million in government cuts since 2010. It sounds like a miracle of financial management, right? But when you pull back the curtain, a much riskier and more concerning picture emerges. Our council isn’t just collecting bins and fixing potholes anymore; it’s behaving like a high-stakes property speculator. The Property Gambler The cornerstone of the council’s financial “resilience” is its commercial property portfolio. Through its ‘Grade Fund’ and ‘Nu Place’ investments, the council generates over £12 million a year. This money is used to plug gaps in services and keep our counc...

Aspirations vs. Action: The Glaring Gap in Telford’s Housing Strategy and the Plan That Offers Real Teeth Labour led Telford and Wrekin Council has unveiled its draft Housing Strategy for 2025-2030, which will be sanctioned and rubber stamped by the Labour cabinet on the 4th December 2025. It's a document that speaks of "higher standards" and "more options." But a closer look reveals a strategy long on past achievements and future aspirations, yet critically short on the binding, concrete actions needed to address a growing housing crisis for its most vulnerable residents. In stark contrast, Mark Webster, the Green Party’s Disability Officer for Telford and Wrekin, has laid out a comprehensive and actionable critique, exposing the strategy's weaknesses and presenting what he calls a "common-sense" alternative with the teeth to force real change. The core difference is simple: one plan hopes for a better future, while the oth...