4.0
Crippled
ByPublisher Description
The austerity crisis and threat to disability rights. New updated edition includes the impact of COVID on Britain's 14 million disabled people.
In austerity Britain, disabled people have been recast as worthless scroungers. From social care to the benefits system, politicians and the media alike have made the case that Britain’s 12 million disabled people are nothing but a drain on the public purse. In Crippled, journalist and campaigner Frances Ryan exposes the disturbing reality, telling the stories of those most affected by this devastating regime. It is at once both a damning indictment of a safety net so compromised it strangles many of those it catches and a passionate demand for an end to austerity, which hits hardest those most in need.
In austerity Britain, disabled people have been recast as worthless scroungers. From social care to the benefits system, politicians and the media alike have made the case that Britain’s 12 million disabled people are nothing but a drain on the public purse. In Crippled, journalist and campaigner Frances Ryan exposes the disturbing reality, telling the stories of those most affected by this devastating regime. It is at once both a damning indictment of a safety net so compromised it strangles many of those it catches and a passionate demand for an end to austerity, which hits hardest those most in need.
Download the free Fable app
Stay organized
Keep track of what you’re reading, what you’ve finished, and what’s next.
Build a better TBR
Swipe, skip, and save with our smart list-building tool
Rate and review
Share your take with other readers with half stars, emojis, and tags
Curate your feed
Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesStay organized
Keep track of what you’re reading, what you’ve finished, and what’s next.Build a better TBR
Swipe, skip, and save with our smart list-building toolRate and review
Share your take with other readers with half stars, emojis, and tagsCurate your feed
Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesCrippled Reviews
4.0
“An absolutely vital read. If you want to understand the experiences of disabled people in the UK, this is it.
Straightforward language and clear data that require no dressing up or philosophising - the policy impacts are obscene enough, a cartoon villainy that would almost be laughable if it weren't killing people.”
“This book has done some really good research about the more contemporary ways in which Britain has failed disabled people through austerity measures. But its main premise is so naive that it makes it seem that before the austerity measures, the UK was a good place for disable people which we know it wasn’t. Not only that, but the author’s refusal to engage with any other variable but disability (and a bit of age and gender) fuels this naïveté.
The first two chapters had several remarks regarding refugees and racialised people that naturalised the ways in which the British government behaves towards them, as if we’ve always been poor and mistreated. They shocked me quite badly, and I almost dropped the book entirely. But that’s where the key is to the failure of this book. It lacks structural understanding of the issues it presents, it relies on notions like human kindness to discuss government policy and it lacks political discussion on what the Tory governments have been trying to do all these years.
Despite revealing a lot of intimate details about the lives of the interviewees (sometimes a bit too much in my opinion), it refuses to look at this issue beyond the welfare state, and beyond a very basic understanding of public policy. Honestly, I’m hoping to find another book that engages with disability in the UK and at least discusses capitalism a bit more”
About Frances Ryan
Dr. Frances Ryan is a journalist, broadcaster and campaigner. Named one of the UK’s most influential disabled people by the Shaw Trust in 2018, her work has taken her to lecture halls, the Women of the World Festival, BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour and The World Tonight, BBC Radio 2’s Jeremy Vine Show, BBC Sunday Politics, Channel 4 News and more. Her weekly Guardian column, Hardworking Britain, has been at the forefront of coverage of austerity over the last decade. She has a doctorate in politics from The University of Nottingham. Ryan was highly commended Specialist Journalist of the Year at the 2019 National Press Awards for her work on disability, as well as shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for Exposing Britain’s Social Evils 2019 and shortlisted for the 2020 Paul Foot Award for Investigative Journalism. This is her first book.
Start a Book Club
Start a public or private book club with this book on the Fable app today!FAQ
Do I have to buy the ebook to participate in a book club?
Why can’t I buy the ebook on the app?
How is Fable’s reader different from Kindle?
Do you sell physical books too?
Are book clubs free to join on Fable?
How do I start a book club with this book on Fable?
