Autism, the Supreme Court and avoiding Spike Milligan

The Supreme Court case of KM – the 26-year old disabled man with autism - v Cambridgeshire County Council has been reported as a ‘landmark’ ruling by some very respectable voices in the media. To the extent that a landmark is a navigation aid, then it is some sort of beacon. But a beacon of what? To be legally certain that assessments must be based on needs rather than on resources is only a useful principle if the services provided are fit for purpose. And there in lies the rub. What’s the purpose?

This reminds me of the vintage Spike Milligan film The Bed Sitting Room about the aftermath of a nuclear war. Spike, together with other Goons, stumbles about on a mountain of rubble spending every morning, as they don’t feel well, queuing for the doctor. He sympathetically examines the pathetic remnants of irradiated Britain and then gives them all the same prescription, for a ‘cooked breakfast’. Cooked, or any other kind, breakfasts were, of course, unobtainable.