Burns Supper
Labour MP supports benefits fast track for terminally ill
Edinburgh on film
EdinburghReportage
Cakefest
Even if you’re not going to or holding a Burns Supper you could still buy a haggis and address it before you eat it!
Just in case you don’t know the words……here they are….
Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o’ the pudding-race!
Aboon them a’ ye tak your place, Painch, tripe, or thairm :
Weel are ye wordy o’a grace As lang’s my arm.
Listen to Robert Gordon Sinclair reciting it while you do the actions by clicking here.
Share photos of your Burns Supper with us here and we will feature the best next weekend.
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Speaking in a debate in Parliament, Mark Lazarowicz MP called on the Government to fast track benefit claims from people with terminal conditions like Motor Neurone Disease and intervened to tell the Minister that the prolonged delays, in some cases of up to 18 months, could mean the outcome comes too late for some people with limited life expectancy.
You can find Mark’s main speech here. He went on to comment:
“I strongly support Gordon Aikman’s campaign to fast track benefit claims from people with terminal conditions like MND: people are waiting 6 months and in some cases 3 times that just to have an assessment.
“Claims can be fast tracked where someone is not expected to live longer than 6 months but where does that leave someone with MND where the average life expectancy after diagnosis is 14 months?
“The Government should offer financial support to people suffering as a result of the delays caused by its own incompetence but first and foremost it should make sure that their claims are fast tracked.
“The Minister’s response in the debate was not acceptable: it’s shameful that people who are so ill should spend the last months or year of their life in financial hardship having to fight so hard for the benefits they are entitled to.”
He was speaking in a debate on the introduction of the new Personal Independence Payment (PIP), the disability benefit that is replacing Disability Living Allowance (DLA) which is designed to help seriously ill or disabled people with the extra costs their condition entails.
It was announced earlier in the week that responsibility for PIP is to be devolved in future and Mark has called for the roll-out of the new benefit to existing DLA claimants to be stopped until it is because of the huge backlog of assessments.
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Edinburgh is the subject of many films but this one is a very fine time lapse of our beautiful city
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If you have any time lapse videos you would like to share with us and our readers then please share them here on our sister site EdinburghReportage!
This is our user generated content site built for us by the lovely people behind Guardian Witness which does exactly the same thing by gathering stories from across the world on defined themes. If time lapse is not for you then there are other stories – or you may submit an idea to us.
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Have you heard about Cakefest 2015? It is a project right here in the city to build a cake map of some of the key points in the city – and then eat it on Midsummer’s Day in the Botanic Gardens.
This is a not-for-profit venture and includes a ‘Bakers’ Choice’ competition for professional and amateur bakers to enter.
Read more here.
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Founding Editor of The Edinburgh Reporter.
Edinburgh-born multimedia journalist and iPhoneographer.
