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I fear this reminds me very much of the cuts to mental health provision in the 80s under Thatcher.

Let's be very clear, many of the mental institutions that were closed desperately needed to be closed - they were barbaric places and I don't think they could even have been reformed.

But - despite all the promises - "care in the community" actually meant "no care" and many people ended up homeless - many died of cold and hunger in great distress.

I don't know how we fight this tactic more than we fight it already.

I'd guess that mainstreaming needs to be linked to the rest of a left of centre economic agenda.

Equally, perhaps it would have been better to campaign to keep Remploy at least until general unemployment was below a decent threshold. Throwing any people into the job market at this time is a cruelty, because the truth is that there are few jobs out there.

by Metatone (metatone [a|t] gmail (dot) com) on Thu Mar 15th, 2012 at 05:33:24 AM EST

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