Ash Ford-McAllister

  So...we (apparently) enter a new (if likely to be very prolonged) phase of Brand GB's "Business as Usual." That's a good  thing, to my mind - Britain's attitude towards its disabled citizens hasn't really shifted since the Victorian era; we're "unfortunates", the "deserving poor", and the State's duty was to find us "occupation" if it could (think basket weaving and piano tuning for the 19th century blind - I wouldn't mind weaving baskets, honestly, but so few people have their own piano these days, that career option is out, because I'd be expected to travel considerable distances to make enough to keep the lights on, and the wolf from the door of my personal life)  and simply doling out "alms" (handouts with a heavy dollop of pity and assumption of incompetence) when there simply wasn't the need for the kind of work we could be trained to do. Over 200years later? Yeah...it's long past time for...

"When I was 15, I was black-out drunk in a field while my parents thought I was at a friend's sleepover...My 15 year old can't even order a coffee unless it's through an app!" "I remember all-night raves, where you talked to loads of people...my kids can't even respond to a simple question without looking like startled rabbits." These kinds of comments are everywhere. Quite apart from why  a grown adult thinks it's any kind of flex to admit to underage drinking and a potentially lethal lack of risk awareness, and ignoring the fact that not every elder millennial did  get blackout drunk in the middle of nowhere, there does seem to be a real issue with a large percentage of Gen Z - again, as with everything, not all  Gen Z - having a hard time dealing with casual adult interactions. So, what's going on? 1. Some people just aren't built with verbal communication in mind. It's not "anxiety" or a "disorder"; their commu...