Incensed by the government's plans to restrict payments of the Disability Living Allowance and Attendance Allowance that they depend on, they wanted to draw public and media attention to their petition to protect the benefits. People from all the political parties were invited to show support, though apart from my 'Green' presence, we only had a couple of LibDems while I was there... and I'm not sure that 'savage cuts' Nick Clegg would applaud them.
The petition is online here, and today laptops were available so passers-by could sign electronically on the spot. The campaign's also very much about disabled people making their own decisions, rather than being told what's good for them by the 'caring' authorities - hence the slogan 'No More Tiny Tim'. To ram the point home, 'patronisers' who go too far find themselves presented with a lollipop!
For some reason, council officers had made things unusually difficult for the event organisers. Although petitioning on the Cathedral property of College Green might seem to pose no threat to anyone, the council insisted on the group buying huge third party liability insurance before issuing a licence - and even that wasn't produced till an hour before it was due to start.
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