Talking Really Blog

Back After Three Years: Why the Talking Really Blog Went Silent

Hello everyone, Andy Wright here – founder of Talking Really, your go-to spot for straight-talking discussions on disability issues, benefits, social inclusion, discrimination, current events, personal stories, and whatever else needs calling out.

If you've checked talkingreally.co.uk recently and noticed the blog section gathering dust... yeah, it's been about three years since I last posted anything proper here (around early 2023). The YouTube channel (Andy Wright Talkin Really / @TalkingReally) has kept chugging along with live streams, phone-ins, quick rants, uncut chats, and the occasional quiz or guest spot. Facebook's been active too, and bits have popped up on Rumble or Odysee.

But the blog? Pretty much crickets.

What happened?

Other platforms basically hijacked my schedule – and I let them.

YouTube demands consistency if you want the algorithm to play nice. Those longer discussions on social security changes, PIP assessments, discrimination stories, or reacting to the latest news cycle take time: recording, editing (or not, for the uncut ones), thumbnails, descriptions, and replying to the flood of comments and messages. Live streams turned regular – people tuning in for advice, phone-ins, or just to vent – and I didn't want to let anyone down.

Then there's Facebook: the group chats, quick replies to benefit queries, sharing resources, and keeping the community going. Shorts and clips sneak in more time than you'd think. Even crossposting to other spots ate into writing time. Every time I sat down thinking, "Right, time for that deep-dive blog on the latest DWP nonsense or why accessibility still feels like an afterthought," something else popped up – a live request, a breaking story needing immediate reaction, or just the mental drain of juggling it all.

It happens. The blog – my original space for longer, thoughtful pieces, detailed advice that doesn't fit in a stream chat, rants that need room to breathe, and proper breakdowns of policies or personal experiences – got pushed aside.

But I've missed writing here. There's something powerful about a full post: unpacking complex topics properly, linking resources, sharing stories without the pressure of real-time comments, and giving people something they can read at their own pace, bookmark, or refer back to.

So, I'm back on the blog.

No over-the-top promises (streams, lives, and life still take priority), but I'm recommitting to this corner of the site. Expect more written updates: recaps of recent discussions, deeper dives into benefits changes, disability rights, social inclusion tips, "what three years of live-streaming taught me," and honest takes on the stuff that matters to us.

First one coming soon: a quick roundup of the big topics we've covered (and missed) since 2023, plus why written content still has a vital place alongside video and live.

Thanks for sticking with Talking Really – whether you've been watching the channel, joining lives, or just checking in. If you've got thoughts, questions, or your own stories, drop them in the comments here or over on YouTube/Facebook. I read them all.

Blog revived, mic still hot. Let's keep talking really.

Andy Wright talkingreally.co.uk (Still advocating, still chatting, still here for the community)

watch the video

https://brandnewtube.com/v/9ODIZo horrendous story

1: http://www.talkingreally.co.uk/membersarea/htmly/content/images/20210413110918-tn1.jpg

here's the brand new tube video on a controversial subject

One more tee-shirt today, hope you like it.

Order from here

The latest shirt for sale, a great design to be found here £13.95 plus postage

Teespring Shop Here's a new tee for sale, along with many more.

£13.95 plus Post.

A man with severe learning difficulties should have a Covid-19 vaccine, despite his family's objections, a judge ruled.

Specialists said the man, who is in his 30s, was "clinically vulnerable" and in a "priority group" for vaccination.

But the man's parents objected and raised a number of concerns about alleged side-effects.

Judge Jonathan Butler agreed with NHS Tameside & Glossop Clinical Commissioning Group that vaccination was in his best interests.

The judge, who is based in Manchester, considered the case at a hearing in the Court of Protection, where issues relating to people who lack the mental capacity to make decisions are analyzed.

He did not name the man in his written ruling, published on Friday.

A number of specialists involved in the man's care all thought he should be vaccinated but his father claimed the vaccine had not been tested sufficiently and did not stop people contracting Covid-19.

He added the long-term side effects on people with severe health issues were unknown.

The man's mother and brother agreed.

Judge Butler said the man's father had outlined his concerns with "conviction and great clarity".

'No clinical base' He added: "I have no doubt whatsoever that his objections are founded on a love for (his son) and a wish to ensure that he comes to no harm.

"His objections were not intrinsically illogical. They were certainly not deliberately obstructive.

"They were made upon the basis as to what he regards as being in the best interests of (his son).

"That concern for his son does him credit."

But he said the family's objections had "no clinical evidence base".

He said the man was vulnerable and said there was "overwhelming objective evidence of the magnetic advantage of a vaccination".

The judge said he had ruled that vaccination was in the man's best interests, but had not authorized "physical intervention".

Health authority bosses had said the vaccine would not be administered if any "form of physical intervention" was required.

A Tameside and Glossop Clinical Commissioning Group spokesperson said: "Our primary concern will always be the best clinical interests of our patients and we work closely with patients, families, and clinicians, and care providers to understand any concerns or judgments made about their care."

Well, finally the website is done, finished, finito, voila!

I'm never satisfied though, so tweaks and improvements will still happen as the weeks go on. Now, hopefully, people will join and we can, together, add information and links to help others. I said elsewhere, I would like this site to become the repository for all knowledge relating to disability issues, etc.

I am very happy with the outcome, the look, and design, the integrated member, blog and forum, which has been a week's worth of working, heartache and hair-pulling. If you write programs for websites or computers, you'll know how frustrating somethings can be, when you want one thing but the code won't allow it.

Two disabled people have launched legal action against the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) over its failure to offer recipients of so-called legacy benefits the same £20-a-week benefit increase given to those on universal credit.

They and hundreds of thousands of other disabled people were outraged when chancellor Rishi Sunak again failed to provide them with the same benefit “uplift” that was first handed to universal credit claimants at the start of the pandemic last March.

Instead, Sunak used last week’s budget to extend the uplift to those on universal credit for another six months.

This means that an estimated 1.9 million disabled people will continue to miss out on the £20-a-week payments.

The two campaigners have secured legal aid for their claim for judicial review of the failure to extend the uplift to those on the out-of-work disability benefit, employment, and support allowance (ESA).

They are arguing, through legal firm Osbornes Law, that the government’s decision has unlawfully discriminated against them as disabled people, under the European Convention on Human Rights.

One of the two claimants has requested anonymity, but the other, Philip Wayland, from Essex, told Disability News Service (DNS) that he believes the failure to extend the uplift was “blatant discriminatory policy”. He said: “Their claim is ‘we have put our arms around the most vulnerable people when they have categorically not done that.

“After 10 years of it, that is what pushed me into it, because I have had enough.

“It was an accumulation of the last 10 years, feeling as though we were being treated as second-class citizens, of years of feeling ignored and treated badly.”

He said he believed that the government was deliberately withholding the uplift from disabled people to try to force them to move onto universal credit and its stricter regime of conditions and sanctions.

Wayland, who has been receiving ESA for the last 10 years, is set to receive an annual inflation-linked increase of just 65p a week in his ESA next month.

Both the Commons work and pensions committee and DWP’s own social security advisory committee have called on DWP to extend the uplift to those on legacy benefits.

And last week, as part of its #More4All campaign, Disabled People Against Cuts delivered mailbags full of the testimonies of disabled people to DWP, the Treasury, and 10 Downing Street, describing the financial struggles they had faced during the pandemic.

Many of them wrote of their “soaring food costs”, including the extra costs of needing to have food delivered during the pandemic, and how they have “to choose between eating and heating”.

One said: “I would be able to bathe more and have my heating on. And be able to eat three times a day instead of two times.”

Another said simply: “On chemo… need to eat properly.”

Wayland said he was appalled when he heard Therese Coffey, the work and pensions secretary, tell an MP this week that she did not even ask Sunak to extend the uplift to those on legacy benefits.

Coffey told the SNP’s Marion Fellows to encourage people on legacy benefits to “go to independent benefits calculators to see whether they would automatically be better off under universal credit (UC)” rather than waiting to be moved across to UC by DWP in the next few years.

Early in the crisis, Coffey had argued that extending the uplift to those on legacy benefits like ESA and jobseeker’s allowance would risk the “safety and the stability of the benefits system”.

Only last week, DNS reported how it was branded “vexatious” by DWP for trying to secure a key unpublished document that could finally show how many disabled people are expected to lose out in the move to universal credit.

The most recent DWP equality impact assessment, published nearly a decade ago, in November 2011, suggested that the number of disabled households gaining financially from universal credit would be at least matched by the number losing out (with about 800,000 households in each group), with disabled people who are out of work particularly likely to lose out.

By noon today (Thursday), the Treasury had still not been able to explain last week’s decision not to extend the uplift to those on legacy benefits.

A DWP spokesperson said the department could not comment on ongoing legal proceedings, but he pointed to the comments made by Coffey on Monday, and similar comments by fellow DWP minister Will Quince, who said the uplift had been introduced “to support those facing the most financial disruption due to the pandemic”.