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Beyond Benefits: The True, Hidden Cost of Disability in Britain. By Dusty Wentworth

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An Introduction: Beyond Suspicion and Hostility Disabled people in Britain are living with the consequences of an underfunded NHS, a fragmented social care system and a political climate that has normalised suspicion and hostility. Public debate has shifted its focus to welfare spending, overlooking the human lives at stake. The result is a country where disabled people are routinely failed by the systems designed to support them. My life as a 52 year old father of three young children, living with complex neurological and psychological conditions following a catastrophic medical event, is a case study in how severely the British state is failing its most vulnerable citizens. Catastrophe and the Absence of Support In October 2023 my life changed instantly. A brain aneurysm ruptured at home, causing a subarachnoid haemorrhage. I collapsed and awoke in intensive care a month later. The rupture left me with an acquired brain injury that affects memory, cognition, processing an...
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Finding Real Support at Last: My First Assessment with Able2B By Dusty Wentworth

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After being repeatedly let down by the NHS, I finally reached the point where I had no choice but to look elsewhere for help that actually works. That search led me to Able2B. It is not free like the NHS, but free is no good if it is not helping you. I contacted them, arranged an assessment and hoped for the best. I had my assessment today (Friday 28th November 2025) and it was truly amazing. Exhilarating is the only word that describes it. Everything was completely person centred and focused on helping you become the best version of yourself. For the first time in a very long time I felt seen, understood and properly supported. Able2B is built on an impressive foundation. Rachel Hutchinson brings her experience as a consultant orthopaedic surgeon, and Jon Thaxton draws on his career as a professional boxer, the former British and European boxing champion who is now a personal trainer. Together they have created an organisation that is genuinely recovery focused and full of...
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Ignored, Delayed, Discarded: The UK's Systemic Failure for Disabled Citizens. By Dusty Wentworth

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​When I was first admitted to the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital in October 2023, I told my wife I would be left like this. It was not a prediction born of panic, but a quiet recognition of how the system treats people who become complex, inconvenient, or costly. I was reassured my fears were unfounded, and that support would be immediately forthcoming. Two years on, those reassurances feel hollow. The reality has unfolded precisely as I expected. ​This whole period of my life began when the situation was still uncertain. Months later, in April 2024, the aneurysm that had first been suspected of leaking and later declared stable eventually ruptured. That rupture led to the surgery that saved my life. Crucially, survival should have marked the beginning of structured recovery. Instead, it marked the point where support completely evaporated. Surviving the operating theatre is one thing; surviving the system afterwards is something else entirely. ​My time dealing wit...
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The Human Zoo: Why Modern Society Feels Like a Cage of Our Own Making. By Dusty Wentworth

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There comes a point in life when travel, age and experience combine to offer a view of humanity that is both humbling and unsettling. You begin to see patterns where once there seemed only chaos, and you start to realise that our greatest achievements and our worst failures are often born from the same part of us. Human genius built both the rocket and the bomb; the difference lies only in intent. Our brilliance and our brutality are twins born of the same restless mind. We like to believe that the great wars and genocides of the twentieth century taught us enough about ourselves to ensure they would never happen again. Yet each generation finds new ways to repeat the same mistake. Hate and intolerance, dressed in new flags and fresh rhetoric, have replaced the mushroom cloud as the weapon of choice. It is as if humanity cannot live without an enemy, and when none can be found, we manufacture one from within. The unnatural habitat we call civilisation Long ago, when animals...
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Remote Work, Green Lies and the Tax Trap: Why Britain Must Challenge the Great Office Return. By Dusty Wentworth

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When the pandemic forced the country indoors, remote working was hailed as a breakthrough. Productivity held steady, families thrived, and air quality in major cities improved. Ministers called it modern, efficient and sustainable. Only a few years later, the message has flipped. Politicians and business leaders now insist that people return to the office. The claim is that productivity and collaboration depend on physical presence, yet the evidence does not support that. The real motive appears far more financial than social: a government addicted to tax revenue and control, not progress. The commuting economy Commuters are profitable. Every journey generates tax, from fuel duty to public transport fares and VAT on takeaway food. When millions began working from home, that entire system faltered. The government’s push to “return to normal” was not about team spirit but about restoring lost revenue streams. The truth is simple: home workers are efficient but less taxable. C...
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The Death of the Em Dash: When Emotion Became Artificial By Dusty Wentworth

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There is a quiet, painful irony in modern writing: the very mark of punctuation once used to capture the rhythm of human thought—the em dash—is now often treated as a tell-tale sign of artificial intelligence. It seems strange that a simple line could lead to an accusation of machine writing, yet in our rush for ‘content’, rhythm and expression are now met with suspicion. I remember when writing was taught with care. We learnt about structure, tone and the weight of a pause. Penmanship mattered. Words were crafted with intention, not mass-produced. Those of us who came before Google, before mobile phones and home computers, grew up with typewriters, pens and paper. We thought electric typewriters were cutting-edge. Writing meant thought and effort, not algorithms and templates—a distinction young writers now struggle to grasp. The em dash was once a writer’s most faithful ally. It carried a change of thought, a shift in emotion, a breath between words. It wasn’t decoration;...
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Open Season on the Disabled? The Toxic Politics Behind Motability ‘Reform’. By Dusty Wentworth

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Who declared open season on disabled people? Because, honestly, that’s what it feels like right now. The government’s latest proposals to “reform” the Motability Scheme — and the toxic, resentful language being thrown around by politicians of all stripes — feel less like sensible policymaking and more like a targeted, personal attack. Unsurprisingly, this has had immediate real-world consequences. The level of abuse I’ve received both online and in public lately has shot through the roof, courtesy of a few bigoted, uneducated individuals who now feel emboldened to shout their opinions in car parks and comment sections alike. Apparently, being disabled has become fair game. Lovely. The New Villains: Disabled People with Suitable Cars If you’ve missed the news, the government is planning to tighten eligibility for the Motability Scheme and remove certain “luxury” vehicles from availability. The unspoken reasoning? Disabled people are apparently having too much fun driving aro...
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Failing the Most Vulnerable: Why Labour’s Disability Reforms Hurt PIP Claimants. By Dusty Wentworth

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Standfirst: A military veteran with complex, fluctuating conditions exposes how the Labour Government’s Universal Credit cuts, PIP changes, and failing NHS services are dismantling the financial and physical independence of even the most severely disabled citizens. My Fight for Care: A Veteran’s Battle with a Broken NHS I served my country — now I’m fighting for basic care. Getting a GP appointment shouldn’t require an MP, a charity, and months of chasing. But for me, a veteran living with combat-related PTSD, fibromyalgia, functional neurological disorder (FND) and a brain injury from a subarachnoid haemorrhage, it did. These conditions cause tremors, muscle spasms, seizures and cognitive impairment — and that’s just some of my symptoms. Across my diagnoses there are many more. Worse, they interact: when one flares, it can trigger or worsen the others. That cross-play creates an incredibly complex, unpredictable condition that the current benefits and healthcare systems si...
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Back to the Seventies — But Worse: A reflection on Britain’s long road back to decline. By Dusty Wentworth

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I sometimes think Britain’s come full circle — back to the seventies, only this time worse. I was young then, but the memories haven’t faded: petrol queues stretching down the road, power cuts that plunged whole streets into darkness, and my dad getting stopped at Heathrow with a suitcase full of sugar. We’d brought it home from Saudi Arabia, where he was working, because Britain had run short. My gran, who’d lived through the war, treated that sugar like treasure. Rationing made sense to her — she’d seen worse. To the rest of us, it felt like a country running out of everything, including hope. We had strikes, high inflation, and the three-day week. Yet there was still some fundamental faith in the future. People complained, but they worked, they coped. Communities held together. You could still believe Britain would somehow pull through. The Lion Wakes: Pride and Division Then came 1982. Argentina invaded the Falklands, thinking we wouldn’t respond. They misjudged us badl...
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The Veteran’s New Battle: How Brain Injury, FND, and Memory Loss Broke My Body But Not My Fatherhood. By Dusty Wentworth.

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  The Before and After I spent my life working. I joined the Army at sixteen, and for more than thirty-four years I prided myself on discipline, resilience, and the ability to keep pushing through. Even with a diagnosis of combat-related PTSD and fibromyalgia, I refused to slow down. I turned fifty in 2023—still working, still fighting, still standing. Then, in October 2023, I collapsed at home. That single event didn’t just end my working life; it marked the beginning of an eleven-month nightmare that shattered my identity, fractured my body, and left me questioning everything I thought I knew about myself—particularly my masculinity and my role as a father to three young children. The hospital’s initial diagnosis was Functional Neurological Disorder (FND)—a terrifying condition directly linked to trauma and my long-term PTSD. But during the investigations, a brain scan revealed something unexpected: a brain aneurysm. The doctors at Addenbrooke’s deemed it stable, requiring only m...
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