Simon J Duffy

Very pleased my @TEDxDoncaster talk is now live. Citizenship is the ideal we desperately need to honour and strive towards if we are going to create a sustainable world and live together in a spirit of justice. #EverydayCitizenship @citizen_network youtu.be/9W31efd_SYM

The Justice Secretary is refusing to meet me to discuss the well-being of my constituent, Amu, who is 40 days into their hunger strike. I have written to express my dismay over the government's lack of urgency, care and humanity toward people at risk of death.

One of the Palestine Action prisoners on hunger strike, Qesser Zuhrah, has been hospitalised. She's lost 13% of her body weight. I am urging David Lammy, the Justice minister, to get engaged now as this is a developing emergency.

The refugees of today are our doctors, carers, teachers and neighbours of tomorrow. Above all, they are human beings worthy of compassion, dignity and respect.

Westminster is failing our kids. The GCSE gap isn’t about talent—it’s about centralisation, underfunding & southern bias. Yorkshire deserves power & fair funding. @SchoolsWeek  @tes   @EduPolicyInst smf.co.uk/gcse-results-d…

Our movement is growing, and growing, and growing. We said that real change was coming — and we meant it. Be part of history at yourparty.uk

Ahead of a crucial vote on cuts to disability benefits, our new evidence casts doubt on whether jobs are even available for disabled people facing cuts 📢 The analysis found that the parts of the country among the hardest hit by the cuts have fewer job opportunities 1/3

I've joined over 100 MPs to back an amendment which, if passed, would halt the Government's planned social security cuts. The Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill has not had a formal consultation with disabled people. It has not been co-produced by them or their carers. MPs are being asked to vote next week on a bill without having seen full impact assessments. The Government’s own initial impact assessment estimates these changes would push 250,000 people into poverty, including 50,000 children. The Government must pause and rethink.

So I went to see Spike Milligan's gravestone recently, to see for myself the "I told you I was ill" epitaph. Bright sunny day, slightly faded inscription, couldn't see it. Walked away somewhat disgruntled, another bloody urban myth I thought. 5 minutes later had a thought, had to walk back again, fool, there it was "Dúirt mé leat go mé breoite," which of course is Irish for "I told you I was ill. Who knew.

@mmaher70 @WOWpetition 15 years of cuts for disabled people… Shameful

Cumulative impact assessment on cuts to disability support from 2010 -2018 by @simonjduffy War on Welfare, @wowpetition went to the HOC twice calling for assessment ALL cuts to disability support Called for by UN and EHRC And the cuts keep coming as they say they won't do a CIA #DisabilityBenefits citizen-network.org/uploads/attach…

Thanks all the Think Tanks that give governments all that help... that KILLS.. or HARMS vulnerable.. You make us sick - Now who is going to STOP ALL THIS? #MPs

This bodes ill. Especially when your entire GE29 strategy appears to now rest on ‘they’ve got nowhere else to go’. Like Brexit & Trump - this shows voters will vote against their rational self-interest to deliver a slap to a status quo that is literally crushing them.

📢 Vam explorar la innovació en suports amb @UtopyaIFG, la importància de la participació comunitària amb Simon Duffy (@citizen_network) i el futur de l’atenció social i sanitària amb @carlescampuzano.

You can find an Easy read version An Introduction to Basic Income Plus A practical approach for making sure basic income works for disabled people and others who face extra costs," by @Hossylass & @simonjduffy here➡️ citizen-network.org/library/basic-…

Looking for info on UBI and Disability? Then check out "An Introduction to Basic Income Plus A practical approach for making sure basic income works for disabled people and others who face extra costs," by @Hossylass & @simonjduffy ➡️citizen-network.org/library/an-int…

In December 2023 I wrote an article criticising Sir Keir Starmer for praising Margaret Thatcher in his Daily Telegraph article. The day after praising Thatcher his website took down his “ten pledges”, replaced by “404 – page not found”. His praise for Thatcher, I said, was because Labour had no plan for government. Sadly, that prediction has come true. Everyone knew adult social care was a mess. What did Wes Streeting do? “Let’s talk about it for another three years.” A mental health crisis in schools? “Erm, we’ll, erm, tinker with academies.” Climate change breaking 1.5 degrees of heating last year? “Let’s expand the airports!” Did you know that in opposition Labour got £7 million of public money every year to develop policy? It’s called Short Money, named after Newcastle MP Ted Short who introduced it in 1974. Now the Starmer-Reeves government is emulating another Tory Leader. In October 2022 Liz Truss ranted against the “anti-growth coalition”. It was their fault, she said, that her genius scheme of doing sod all to fix Britain’s problems wasn’t working. "I have three priorities for our economy: growth, growth and growth,” said Truss. “Time-wasting Nimbys and zealots” are holding us back, said Starmer in his Daily Mail article last week. The UK needs three things, said Starmer, "growth, growth, growth." Growth, Keir, comes from fixing the Gateshead flyover. From paying the money we were promised for the Tyne Bridge repairs, so people aren’t stuck in traffic for an hour each day. The Leamside Line hasn’t been delayed by regulators, it’s government pulling the funding. Is it regulations holding up the Gateshead conference Centre? Was it nimbys who stopped Gateshead Town getting promoted because the stadium lacked investment? It’s not the greenbelt stopping houses being built. Developers are sitting on land with planning permission already granted for over 1 million homes. They build when they can maximise profit. So why aren’t you funding councils, NeoLabour, to build affordable homes for rent? And don’t say we can’t afford public ownership of water. Just enforce the regulations, make them pay for the clean up, and their share prices will tumble. Then the dividends can be invested in clean water instead of sucked out to tax havens. Now, with the Heathrow expansion they’ve crossed the Rubicon into full Thatcherism. North East investment cancelled and channelled to the “Golden Triangle” of Oxford-Cambridge-London. It’s called levelling-down. Truss promised an “iron grip” on public spending. Thatcher styled herself the “iron lady”. Rachel from accounts likes her metallic metaphors too. The report she used to justify the Heathrow Project was funded by – yes, Heathrow airport, itself owned mostly by overseas governments. The Department for Transport previously rejected the report’s methodology as “not fit for purpose”, and the data was supplied by the airport itself! In 1969 Elizabeth Kubler-Ross described five stages of loss. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Yet again a Thatcherite government is screwing over the North East. Many Labour members are coming out of denial. Like the German soldiers in the Mitchell and Webb sketch, thinking, “Are we the bad guys?” There’s still a few, mostly on the payroll, who angrily bleat, “four legs good, two legs better.” “Any Labour government is better than any Tory government.” Tell that to your Gran who’s lost her winter fuel allowance. To the third child in poverty. To the people stuck in traffic on the Tyne Bridge. To the disabled people being bullied off benefits in Stamer’s Britain. Starmer and Reeves did listen to those poor non-doms, though. Labour ministers sacked for corruption. MPs taking £££s in freebies. Most are in depression. As Orwell said in Animal Farm, “The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.” If you’ve reached acceptance, there’s an alternative. Along with hundreds of others, I’ve set up Majority. No whips. A commitment to high standards in public life. And deliberative democracy – directly involving the public in policy development. We’re standing candidates this May in Northumberland and Durham. In 2026, we’ll be running in all the Tyne and Wear elections. If you want a better politics, visit Majorityuk.org.

This is delicious: how China's DeepSeek has blown a $1 trillion hole in the US Technofeudal Order. All it took was a smart tech solution that turned OpenAI's process of commodifying our data into a free good. Let's see how our technofeudalists respond theguardian.com/business/2025/…

@Allotment2022 @ZackPolanski @BigIssue 3/3 For those with higher needs, take a look at the work of @simonjduffy & @Hossylass and UBI+ citizen-network.org/library/an-int…

I'm proud of my beautiful, kind, thoughtful, hilarious sons. And I'm proud of us, our little family. I can't be dad 🖤 but I'm a lot of mum. Often think about my mums sayings-'you've heart like a lion you', ... apples don't fall far from trees ❤️