PHIL FRIEND

A tech writer spent a year using AI for everything and called it a revelation. I'd call it a Tuesday. Here's why disabled people have been doing this for decades — and what that says about the world we live in. Joanna Stern spent a year using AI to do almost everything. She's a technology writer. Her new book, I Am Not a Robot, is out this week. She appeared on NPR's Fresh Air to talk about it — the year she used AI to read her medical results, draft her messages, and process

AI-generated image Let's start with something most of us can agree on. Getting out of the house in the morning is a logistical challenge. Kids refusing to eat breakfast. School bags that vanished overnight. The dog who decides today is the day to throw up its breakfast. Life is complicated before 9 am. I know this. I'm a wheelchair user. I'm also a husband, a father and a grandfather. My morning complexity is the same as yours — plus a bit extra. This week, the extra arrived

Let me start with Mark Mardell. Mark is a former BBC journalist — World Affairs Editor, North America Editor. He has Parkinson’s disease. Last October, he arrived at Istanbul airport to catch a Turkish Airlines flight home to London. He’d checked in. He was at the gate. And then he was told he couldn’t board. Turkish Airlines had a policy buried in their small print: Parkinson’s was the one condition — just Parkinson’s, not heart disease, not diabetes — requiring passengers t

I hadn’t been to NAIDEX for a long time. Years, in fact. So when I wheeled into the NEC in Birmingham last week, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. What I found was extraordinary. And not just for the reasons you might think. Standing or sitting room only I was there to speak. Three of us on a stage — me, Simon Minty, and Abbie Brown — on the subject of employment. The stage was open to the exhibition floor. There were stands all around us, people rolling by, the general hub

It's been a grim week for disability news. Access to Work is in crisis. One disability organisation found that support hours for their clients dropped by 82% in three years. Inaccessible railway stations are locking millions of people out of travel, employment, and healthcare. Benefits reform is creating real fear for hundreds of thousands of families. If you've been following the headlines, you could be forgiven for feeling like disability is under attack. But step back for

I watched the International Women's Day speeches in the House of Lords recently. Baroness Jane Campbell wasn't in the chamber. She joined via Zoom, supported by her personal assistant. It was a small but telling moment. A great demonstration of what happens when barriers are removed, talent can flourish. Jane used her speech to reflect on a "first break" she received decades ago. That single decision started a career that changed disability rights in this country. It's a r

Disabled Entrepreneur AI is threatening the jobs that disabled people depend on most. But their lifetime of navigating a world not built for them might be exactly the skill set the rest of us now need. Nearly a million young people in the UK are currently not in work, education or training. The highest figure in a decade, and still rising. At the same time, entry-level job postings are running 45% below their five-year average. Graduate roles in banking and finance have falle

New figures this week show that one in eleven disabled people is now unemployed. That's the highest rate in six years. And disabled people are losing jobs at nearly ten times the rate of non-disabled people. The government is concerned. Charities are alarmed. Reports are being written. But here's the thing. We're not short of explanations. We've known for decades that disabled people face discrimination at the very first hurdle — the job application. Cardiff University rese

Alan Graham was 75, Deaf from birth, and a BSL user. After a fall, he was admitted to Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham and diagnosed with heart failure. He was in the hospital for 11 weeks. During that time, the Trust provided a professional BSL interpreter on just three occasions. So who filled the gap? His grandchildren. Connor, who was 16, and Mia, who was 12. Staff asked them to relay medical information to their grandfather and their mother, Jennifer, who is also D

It’s January. The long evenings are still with us, but thoughts are already drifting towards summer. Holidays. City breaks. A bit of warmth and light. For many people, this is the moment when flights get booked, and plans begin to take shape. For disabled people, especially wheelchair users, that process comes with a different set of questions. Not just where to go, but whether flying will be manageable at all. Credit where it’s due. British Airways has done something gen

We keep saying we want more disabled people in work. So why are we making the support they rely on harder to use? The government is clear about its ambition: more disabled people in employment, fewer people stuck on benefits, and a labour market that makes better use of talent that is currently overlooked. It’s an aim many of us would support without hesitation. But ambition only matters if the systems underneath it actually deliver — particularly for employers who are expect

What the Motability Scheme changed — and why the Budget risks turning the clock back My driving life began in a three-wheeled blue “Noddy car”. It had the turning circle of a shopping trolley and the crash protection of a biscuit tin. More than that, it announced “this driver is disabled” to the world at full volume. It got me around, but it never let me forget I was different. Then the Motability Scheme arrived — and everything changed. Suddenly, disabled people could drive

Ever tried using a parcel return point from a wheelchair? I did recently — or rather, I tried to. What followed was a lesson in how clever ideas can become barriers when inclusion isn’t part of the plan. At my local Morrisons, there’s a shiny new self-service parcel drop-off point tucked away at the back of the garage forecourt. There’s no dedicated parking for it, so the only option is to stop in the forecourt itself. The service road leading to the supermarket is on a bend,

I keep seeing articles about the “untapped talent” of disabled people. The phrase pops up with the reliability of a well-worn sitcom rerun. It’s meant warmly, I know. But after thirty-plus years in this field, I can’t help feeling a familiar mix of frustration and quiet amusement. Because if this really were a new idea, I must have dreamt most of the 1990s. The Numbers Haven’t Moved Much Here’s the reality. In 2024, just over half of working-age disabled people in the UK wer

Every so often, another report lands reminding us that disabled people still travel far less than everyone else. The latest research from the National Centre for Accessible Transport (NCAT) and the Research Institute for Disabled Consumers (RiDC) shows that disabled people make 38% fewer journeys than non-disabled people — and that figure hasn’t changed in over ten years. You’d think that after decades of work on accessibility, that gap would be closing. But NCAT’s new report

In November, I’ll turn 80. It feels a bit like I’m sitting astride the mountain of life, catching my breath and looking back at the path I’ve climbed. The journey has been long, sometimes steep, sometimes surprising, and now I find myself reflecting on what I’ve learned along the way. No Regrets The first thing I’ve realised is that regrets are a waste of time. I don’t mean I’ve always made brilliant choices — far from it. But even when I didn’t get what I wanted, something b

On 10 September, The Times ran a piece questioning the Motability scheme. It warned that “one in five new cars sold in Britain are now bought by Motability … given £2.8 billion in taxpayer cash each year.” Read the article here It’s a dramatic claim. The picture painted is one of disabled people cruising around in luxury cars at public expense. It makes good copy. But it doesn’t match the reality. Here’s the first thing to understand. Motability doesn’t decide who qualifies.

We've been married nearly 50 years. In all that time, we have never once run out of bleach. Meanwhile, I regularly forget we're having dinner with Fred on Saturday. Despite being told three times. I've missed booking our August holiday leave until the last minute. Last week, I double-booked myself because I had forgotten about something my wife had mentioned just days earlier. But bleach, it never runs out. How is this possible? You see, I get bored with solutions faster than

In this post, I reflect on a thought-provoking article by Rachel Botsman and explore what her ideas mean for disabled people navigating work, isolation, and connection in a post-pandemic world. During COVID, the world stayed home. Work went online, meetings went virtual, and life became more accessible for many disabled people. What had previously been dismissed as “unworkable” – remote jobs, flexible hours, online events – became normal almost overnight. In her RSA article T

If Peter Pan needed a wheelchair, he’d probably end up grounded too. Travelling as a powered wheelchair user is like playing a game of “What’s the Worst That Could Happen?” Spoiler: The house always wins. For many of us, flying is an anxiety-inducing circus. Will our wheelchairs arrive intact? Will they arrive at all? Will we be stranded without essential equipment? And heaven forbid nature calls mid-flight—aircraft toilets are about as accessible as the dark side of the moo