Kathryn LifeLearner

Carer, learner & crafter. Former educator, nurse & volunteer. Wannabe writer, coder, artist & musician. Finally working on PTSD. Muting spam. Ignoring most DMs.

[Heather The Fruit Bat💚 @TubbyBats]

@Chuffin_ell @ApingSpring Exactly. They even decided if I needed a person with me and what badges I could have on the card. Outrageous.

[🅰🅽🅳🆁🅴🆆 @LeedsLeftWing]

Politics gets deliberately clouded by party tribes, Westminster spin, and endless media circus. But strip away the noise, and the only test that matters is simple: do your policies make sure ordinary folk are fed, housed, educated, and treated with basic human dignity?

If they don’t, you aren't governing—you’re just managing decline and protecting extreme wealth. 🌹

[🅰🅽🅳🆁🅴🆆 @LeedsLeftWing]

The real con of Thatcherism: sell off public assets for pennies, then force working people to rent basic essentials back at extortionate rates.

Public services belong to the public, not private cartels. 🌹✊

[🅰🅽🅳🆁🅴🆆 @LeedsLeftWing]

Wasn’t GB News already their television channel? Raising £87 million from wealthy donors just to set up an echo chamber where nobody can ask a difficult question or check their sums. You can buy all the broadcast cameras you like, but you still can’t buy a practical policy. Pure vanity project

[Lisa Give Peace a Chance Tucker-Clemens @TuckerClemens]

Handy info. 🤣🤣🤣

[🅰🅽🅳🆁🅴🆆 @LeedsLeftWing]

A welcome dose of common sense: the only time travel Westminster spivs actually believe in is dragging working conditions back two centuries while pretending it's "patriotism". If Farage could blame British Summer Time on migrants, he’d already have a 24-hour YouTube broadcast about it. Calling out political charlatans means looking forward, not backwards.

[🅰🅽🅳🆁🅴🆆 @LeedsLeftWing]

Right-wing populism in a nutshell: preach ruthless free-market capitalism for working folk, but demand billions in state handouts the second their own reckless trade wars blow up in their faces. From US tariff bailouts to UK farm subsidies gutted after Brexit, it's always the taxpayer picking up the tab while billionaire politicians play culture war games. Real food security means protecting growers with proper wages and stable supply chains, not corporate welfare disguised as patriotism. 🌹

[🅰🅽🅳🆁🅴🆆 @LeedsLeftWing]

Telling working-class families to "stockpile food and cash" assumes a surplus that simply does not exist when cupboards are bare by Wednesday.

The stockpile delusion isn’t sensible domestic hygiene—it’s an ideological blindfold covering up systemic decline.

Sunday dispatch live now on LeedsLeftWing. Full piece via link in bio

[Briana Mills, LMFT ♿️🏳️‍🌈🍉 @theBrianaMills]

I wish more people understood that disability is universal. You will experience disability at some point in your life, whether from accident, illness, old age, or even temporary disability. Please advocate for accessibility because it literally benefits everyone.

[Artur Nadolny @ArturNadol7566]

FUNERAL EVE INTERVIEW

Louise Dar was 7 months pregnant when she faced the auditors.

The day before her mother's funeral, Louise Dar was questioned. Post Office called it a formal interview, which is a lovely name for asking a grieving woman where the money went.

I read Louise Dar's sworn statement to the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry @PostOffInquiry. She took over the village post counter in Lenzie, near Glasgow, in November 2014.

She is a mum of 3 and a former IT analyst, and before opening she asked for training on what to do when the books do not balance. She says she was fobbed off, and that a trainer told her cost cutbacks had shrunk the course from 5 days to 3.

On day one, she says, auditor Margaret Guthrie suggested she had taken the £977, even though they had been together all day. Louise Dar says Margaret Guthrie had entered the stamps wrongly herself and could not find her own mistake. Her advice for future trouble was to get on with it and ring the helpline. Reassuring stuff from the person sent to check everyone else's sums.

Then the audits came. In July 2015 about £10,500 was found missing and her branch shut for 6 weeks. She repaid £877 a month for 18 months. Two more audits found about £2,500 in 2016 and £6,900 in 2017.

She says losses kept appearing while she was locked out of the system ....

She says she paid or had deducted over £44,000. Her mother-in-law sold jewellery to help. She says her contracts manager Brian Trotter asked her several times to admit falsifying the books. Persistence like that deserves a bonus..

Her mother died suddenly in March 2017. She says Post Office summoned her to a formal interview the day before the funeral and accused her of stealing.

Thoughtful scheduling, really. Her appointment ended on 27 March 2017 and she was never charged. Her mother never saw her proved right.

Post Office tells it differently. It says her appointment ended for repeated failures to account for cash and stock, and for being unable to explain or repay the last shortfall. It says its investigation found falsified entries under her assistant's login and that she later accepted she was responsible for an unexplained currency gap. Its barrister put it to her in the High Court that the losses came from her or her staff's dishonesty or errors.

She denied it and said the helpline once told her to change stock figures. Its barrister said that did not happen. She said it categorically did.

She was one of 6 lead claimants for 555 postmasters in the High Court case against Post Office, which left her outside the Historic Shortfall Scheme. She told the Inquiry on 11 May 2022 that her payments hardly touched her debts.

In January 2024 she asked Police Scotland @PoliceScotland to investigate. It said it was not investigating at that time.

The government owns Post Office and the Department for Business and Trade runs the compensation, so the owner is also the claims desk. Very handy.

Louise Dar asked for troubleshooting training. @PostOffice gave her the trouble.

[James Melville 🚜 @JamesMelville]

A great rant from a friend:

“I don't know who's running the British newspapers at the moment, but I reckon somebody's accidentally given the editorial jobs to a bunch of fucking doomsday preppers.

Have you seen the absolute state of the news lately?

World War Three. Nuclear Armageddon. Russian cyberattacks. Chinese hackers. Emergency survival kits. How to prepare for the end of civilisation.

Every bloody newspaper seems to be running the same story.

You'd think Vladimir Putin had been spotted at Dover services with a tank and a packed lunch.

And apparently, the most important thing we can do to prepare for all this is go shopping.

Seriously.

We're being advised to stockpile food, water, torches, batteries and enough toilet roll to survive the collapse of Western civilisation.

Do they genuinely believe we're all going to read these articles, leap off the sofa and charge down to Asda like there's a fucking trolley dash on?

I reckon somebody's looked at the Christmas retail figures and thought, "How can we get these bastards to spend another two hundred quid?"

"Tell them the Russians are coming."

"Brilliant. We'll shift those seventeen pallets of corned beef we've had sitting in the warehouse since Easter."

And what exactly am I supposed to do with all these emergency supplies if there's a nuclear attack?

Imagine it.

You're sitting in your living room, minding your own business, when suddenly there's an enormous flash outside.

The windows explode. The roof comes off. There's a nuclear shockwave tearing through the city, flattening everything in its path.

And there you are, crawling across the kitchen floor, desperately trying to get the fucking tin opener out of the drawer.

"QUICK! SOMEBODY GET THE BEANS!"

What fucking difference are beans going to make?

You're about to be vaporised at several thousand degrees. I don't think the nutritional benefits of baked beans are going to be particularly relevant.

But the politicians are the funniest part of all this.

Angela Rayner was asked what she'd be stockpiling.

Sauvignon Blanc and mascara.

Sauvignon Blanc and fucking mascara!

I love that.

The world's coming to an end, millions could die, civilisation might collapse, but Angela's making sure she's got a decent bottle of white and her eyelashes done.

Then Andy Burnham comes along telling people not to stockpile alcohol because they need to keep a clear head.

Well, thank Christ we've got that sorted.

One politician's preparing for the apocalypse like she's going to an all-inclusive resort in Tenerife, and another's telling everybody to drink responsibly.

And apparently Andy's emergency supplies include Twiglets.

Fucking Twiglets.

I mean, at what point did the national security discussion turn into everybody comparing what they've brought to a children's birthday party?

We're supposedly facing the possibility of World War Three, and our political leaders are having a conversation that wouldn't sound out of place in the middle aisle of Aldi.

And then there's the cyberattack warnings.

Apparently, Russia or China could launch a massive cyberattack and bring down our communications, electricity supplies and essential services.

Right.

And what am I supposed to do about that?

Unplug the kettle?

Put the laptop in a biscuit tin?

I can just imagine some highly trained Russian cyberwarfare specialist sitting in Moscow, surrounded by millions of pounds' worth of sophisticated computer equipment.

"Comrade, we have penetrated the British national infrastructure."

"Excellent. Shut down their electricity."

"We cannot, sir."

"Why not?"

"Some bastard in Ellesmere Port has wrapped his Virgin Media router in fucking Bacofoil."

It's a good job Churchill isn't around to witness this.

"We shall fight them on the beaches. We shall fight in the fields and in the streets. We shall never surrender."

"Unless we've run out of Pot Noodles, in which case we're absolutely fucked."

What a fucking pantomime.”

[Wheelie MS Advocate - #PoweredByExperience - ♿️ @WheelieFUMS]

It's Budget Day, 28 October 2026.

There's been plenty of speculation about PIP, Universal Credit and disability benefits, but speculation is not confirmed policy.

Ahead of today's announcements, no new PIP points rule, means test or voucher replacement has been formally announced. The Timms Review has not yet published its final recommendations.

I'll be examining the official Budget documents to see what actually changes for disabled people, including benefit uprating, housing support, social care and the cost of living.

**Disabled people deserve facts, not frightening headlines.**

Sources:
https://t.co/PXNthpihCc

https://t.co/Lu39S0bzsb

#Budget2026 #PIP #UniversalCredit #WelfareReform #DisabilityBenefits #TimmsReview

[Emma Dolan @JustMissEmma]

Well, yesterday was a bit of a shitshow.

I fell out of my wheelchair, hurt my foot and landed rather spectacularly on my arse. Not ideal, but hardly worthy of a medical emergency…. except less than ten minutes later, I was unconscious and being blue-lighted into hospital. I know. Whopper.

It wasn’t because of my foot, mind you… Nooo. It was my adrenal glands.

I have something called #AddisonsDisease which means those two little glands above your kidneys don’t produce cortisol. And if you didn’t know, cortisol is rather bloody important. As in, you literally cannot stay alive without it. So… I take steroids every day to do the job my adrenal glands have apparently resigned from. 

The trouble is, when healthy people get injured, ill or stressed, their bodies automatically produce extra cortisol. Mine? Nope… nothing. “You’re on your own, love.” Aaaand suddenly a little tumble becomes a life-threatening adrenal crisis.

Blood pressure plummets, consciousness disappears, and without an emergency hydrocortisone injection, things can go very badly wrong rather quickly.

But here’the really upsetting part.
The life-saving injection we need to use, isn’t ready to use!

Nay nay nay… no speedy pen, or pre-filled syringes here. You have to open a little glass ampoule of sterile water, draw the liquid into a syringe, inject it into a separate vial containing powdered hydrocortisone, gently mix and WAIT until the powder dissolves, then draw the medication back into the syringe. After that, you need to fit the appropriate IM needle, prepare the injection site and inject it deep into a muscle, usually your thigh.
All whilst vomiting, shaking, and usually losing consciousness. 

I mean, who on earth thought that was a sensible idea?!

I’ve got to a point now, where I’ve resorted to preparing syringes in advance, despite knowing the risks, and the reduce efficacy… because something is better than nothing. And let’s face it… when you’re partially unconscious, your chemistry skills are somewhat limited.

All joking aside though, the sobering reality of this is that research suggests around 1 in 200 people with adrenal insufficiency die from adrenal crisis each and every year. A statistic that should enrage us.

I’m not telling you this for sympathy. I’m telling you because we desperately need as much awareness to campaign for safer emergency medication that’s actually easy to administer in an emergency.

I was lucky yesterday. I got the treatment I needed, and I’m still here to have a good moan about it. But not everyone gets to tell their story afterwards.

I wonder how many people have died with everything they needed to survive sitting right beside them.
#AddisonsDisease @AddisonsUK

[Kathryn LifeLearner @ApingSpring]

@implausibleblog @EdwardJDavey I recently had a break (fractured a bit of my spine).

Unbelievably painful but my waiting-area hours are like a period of respite from my Caring role.

My family member wants to support me at my appointments. Sorry but No; I've needed this alone-time for soooo long.

[Grumpy Northerner @DNA23Brugmansia]

@contactfamilies @ApingSpring Not until 2030 and only if Labour win the next election.

[Kathryn LifeLearner @ApingSpring]

@andyburnham @YvetteCooperMP @UKLabour @Conservatives

[Rae :-) @Chuffin_ell]

… @Helen_Whately says we “can’t afford to sign off 25% of the population.”

Meanwhile disabled people can’t buy accessible tickets for @WeAreInvictus @Birmingham2027 without Nimbus verification.

Before lecturing disabled people about work, perhaps build a world they can access.

[Rae :-) @Chuffin_ell]

Of all places: the Invictus Games.

Even at @Birmingham2027, disabled people are told: prove it.

For accessible tickets, disabled spectators need a Nimbus Access Card or free IG27 Digital Access Pass. Nimbus is its “Official Accessibility Verification Partner.” #Nimbus

[Rae :-) @Chuffin_ell]

… @Helen_Whately says we “can’t afford to sign off 25% of the population.”

Meanwhile disabled people can’t buy accessible tickets for @WeAreInvictus @Birmingham2027 without Nimbus verification.

Before lecturing disabled people about work, perhaps build a world they can access.

[Rae :-) @Chuffin_ell]

This is the INVICTUS GAMES - built around wounded, injured and sick service personnel.

Yet disabled spectators need Nimbus verification to buy accessible tickets.

If any event should understand access without another hoop, surely it’s this.

@WeAreInvictus

[Rae :-) @Chuffin_ell]

Last year we went to a farm we know well. We’ve been countless times. My daughter was there ( with wheelchair)

We were told: no not without Nimbus

Suddenly a place we’d accessed for years required somebody else to verify her disability first (her disability is fairly obvious)🪡