The Productive Pessimist

  The Bank of England is expressing significant concerns about Britain's "ageing and ailing workforce", harmonising to the government's tune of how the long-term sick are responsible for the UK economic challenges, and how "necessary" raising the State pension age is. Those two songs have been a more or less constant refrain from various shades of UK governments since 1997 - almost 30years.  Pretty much my whole life, and the entirety of my life as someone old enough to vote. Of course, work is necessary.  Countries have essential core services which require vast workforces to provide and administrate. Governments should be generating national income by exporting from the manufacturing, STEM, creative, and knowledge economy sectors, all of which require their own skilled and specialist workforces, and the workforce of their respective administrative and marketing functions. Continuous income, to cover the unavoidable payment lags in exports, is necessary fo...

  Today, I attended a webinar on "Capability and Ill-health in the Workplace".  It was hosted by a corporate insurer who provides HR consultancy services. Those attending were business leaders and HR representatives, and the Q&A at the end made it clear they believed they were only in a "room" with other  leaders and HR reps. Their attitudes around long-term ill health and disability were immediately presented as: . This is an intolerable and ridiculous burden to us as employers . This is too expensive . These people are taking the piss . It's not going to be fair to able-bodied people who have to pick up their slack. This is also the attitude I've personally, directly  encountered as someone trying to work whilst also being disabled.  It's the attitude that lost me my last job - a job I mostly enjoyed, and a role I'd hoped to build a career from. Employers. HATE. Disabled. And. Chronically. Ill.  Employees. They do not  want to employ disabled p...

  We enter Pride Month at a time when global LGBTQIA+ rights are under direct, immediate attack, including in developed Western countries - which has not been the case, on a systemic level, for many years.  For some younger LGBTQIA+ Western people, they have never in their lifetime   known a situation where, systemically, at a legal level, they have not had  rights as a default position. It feels frightening - even when you have  lived through being LGBTQIA+ without rights, or without the level of rights younger Western people have been able to assume were "just naturally there." It actually is  frightening. It is terrifying when your government directly positions itself in opposition to your ability to safely exist as yourself in the world. And LGBTQIA+ people have to exist in the world. Including non-passing trans people. Including very butch Sapphic women, and very femme gay men. Including people who are visibly intersex. Including polyamorous people who...