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If I told you that I have been incarcerated as a political prisoner in psychiatric wards for large parts of the last nine years, given mind-altering drugs against my will and that the only form of recourse is to appeal to a tribunal where all tribunal members are appointed by the establishment, then you’d imagine that I am living in a dictatorship, such as the USSR under Lenin or Stalin, Germany under Hitler, Iraq under Saddam Hussein or Saudi Arabia under a royal family that is an ally of the West. In fact, the dictatorship in question is the UK, and the dictator in question was Tony Blair and is now Gordon Brown.
My initial incarceration took place after the 1998 European School of the CWI (to which the Socialist Party, formerly the Militant Tendency, is affiliated) at which I was the only speaker in the debate from England or Wales to support the setting up of the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP).
The failure of the Socialist Party and CWI to support the setting up of the SSP was part of a sectarian attitude to other socialist organisations that they were starting to adopt. In England and Wales, it led to pulling out of socialist alliances. In the Republic of Ireland, it led to then refusing calls for them to help set up socialist alliances, despite them having an MP (TD), Joe Higgins. For an analysis of the subsequent problems of those organisations, visit the socialist organisations page.
I was targeted because I was and still am a very important political activist. I have now discarded many of my previously held Marxist ideas and am advocating an ethical capitalist revolution (via my
Ethical Capitalism Network), which may or may not lead to an ethical socialist revolution (which in my view must involve proportional representation by single transferable vote).I have spent large parts of the last nine years, generally as a political prisoner (although I confess to having had mental health problems due to the effect of drugs and complexities of the world situation) in psychiatric wards, including in Manchester, London, Barcelona and Glasgow.
During my periods of time in hospital, I have been forced to take mind-altering drugs against my will. I have sometimes come off such drugs, either by refusing tablets in hospital or by failing to take them during various periods of time outside hospital. However, coming off drugs is sometimes worse than staying on them, because my mind can often counteract their effects when I get used to them but I can get withdrawal symptoms (perhaps due to the drugs being deliberately designed to make them hard to get off or perhaps due to my mind having to modify its procedures for dealing with drugs).
I strongly oppose the power to force patients in hospital to take psychiatric drugs. I have never been allowed to prove that I am sane without the presence of drugs for any sustained period of time during my times in hospital. You have to try to prove that you are sane under the presence of drugs at a tribunal, and even if you succeed in this, they are likely to conclude that you must stay on the drugs to stay sane. At present, psychiatrists have this power in the whole of Britain, and in Scotland you can be forced to take drugs in the community too. I used to oppose this use of force in the community, but now recognise that it may be necessary in extreme circumstances (some former psychiatric patients do carry out violent crimes including murder after all). However, there is no rational reason why patients in the controlled environment of a hospital should be forced to take psychiatric drugs (except when/if they carry out violent acts and need to be restrained).
Earth First! Gathering, at which I met Priya Reddy (otherwise known as warcry) who I believe will lead an ethical revolution with me, I had to go AWOL from a psychiatric ward in Manchester. [I had gone to the gathering the previous year while discharged from hospital.] Before I went AWOL, I was on an awful drug, called a “mood stabiliser”, semi-sodium valproate with the brand name Depakote. I had palmed one of the two Depakote tablets the previous evening, so that I get off that drug gradually in preparation for going AWOL.The vegan and mainly organic diet I had at the gathering allowed my body to detox itself from the drugs I had been on, and I was thinking much more clearly. I sometimes say that I am “teemainly”, a word I have made up meaning almost teetotal, but occasionally having alcohol. There were four different soft drinks available in cans at the gathering. The ginger and cranberry drinks were particularly good, but on the final evening I thought I should try the other two drinks: lemonade and cola. The lemonade was fine, although not nearly as nice as the ginger and cranberry drinks, but the cola drink obviously had an awful drug in it because it caused a “relapse” of some symptoms I had exhibited previously.
It makes sense that the cola was dodgy, because people who drink it and those involved in its manufacture were likely to drink Coca-Cola and Pepsi. Those two corporations financed vicious dictatorships in Latin America such as Pinochet’s in Chile. Therefore, such people tended to be less ethical than those who drink or manufacture the other organic drinks. Mentioning that those corporations also supported Galtieri’s regime in Argentina can be an extremely useful way of winning over jingoistic (patriotic) people in the UK, since that regime invaded one of the few remaining parts of the British empire, the Falkland Islands (known as the Malvinas in Argentina).
The “relapse” I had involved me finding it very difficult to think rationally and communicate, and I resorted to acting in very bizarre ways. I had some gin and tonic as well afterwards (which I had never tried before, but that was not responsible for my bizarre behaviour. [I would prefer not to mention exactly what that behaviour consisted of on this website, but many of those who were there will know what I am talking about.] I got over that situation by talking things over with various people, particularly in the tent at the entrance to the camp, and consuming some vegan chocolate cake (that seemed to be a particularly powerful antidote). I acted very rationally the following day (the last day of the camp), but I was recommended to voluntarily get myself admitted to a psychiatric ward, and was taken to a nearby one by some people from the camp.
I now realise that a major reason for difficulties I had dealing with everyday situations, and indeed doing political activities including developing good quality web pages, was large numbers of my brain cells being dedicated to building up a much better model of the world than I was using to make decisions. As time went on, I found things even harder to deal with such situations due to the new model requiring even more brain cells. In November 2006, I got a sensation, that I remembered from a few years previously, indicating that my mind had reconfigured itself to use a better model of the world. I have been far more effective from that time onwards, in my political activities and my thinking. However, I have tended to change my mind a lot, and sometimes gone on-line with extremely contradictory positions that were counter-productive from the point of view of getting good votes for socialists at the Scottish parliamentary elections. I now think that my subconscious wanted socialists to fail. For more information about this, visit
the home page of my socialist website.Mood stabilisers supposedly make you less high when you would naturally be very high, and less low when you would naturally be very low. Depakote tended to make me feel what I called “flat”, which was maybe the point of a mood stabiliser, but it gave me a rather pessimistic view of the world and it was important to get off that drug.
I moved up to Glasgow from Manchester in April 2006, and am now a political prisoner in Leverndale Hospital, on ward 1 of Leverndale Hospital (510 Crookston Road, Glasgow G53 7TU), telephone 0141-882 4785 (or +44 141 882 4785 for those phoning from outside the UK). I only have escorted leave on the hospital grounds, but that is sufficient to use the internet after the recent installation of broadband facilities on computers in a building on the grounds.
I have been AWOL many times in the last nine years, by breaking out of less secure wards, when on unescorted leave and occasionally when deliberately abandoned on escorted leave. While in Glasgow, I have been AWOL a few more times, including to the Scottish Socialist Party conference in October 2006, the anti-war anti-Trident demonstration in Glasgow on the 24th of March this year, and the pro-independence demonstration in Edinburgh at the start of the recent Scottish parliamentary election campaign.
I tried a different mood stabiliser, lithium, for a brief period of time but got by far the worst case of “postural hypertension” (feeling dizzy and sometimes falling down due to low blood pressure) that I have ever had in my life shortly after starting to take it. That is not supposed to be a side effect of that drug and I now suspect that my subconscious deliberately caused it, rather than the drug, in order to inform me that it was a very bad drug to take.
I agreed to take a different mood stabiliser, Lamotrigine, recently as a compromise with a junior psychiatrist in return for being given unescorted leave in the hospital grounds. I was understandably wary of taking this drug (after my experiences with other mood stabilisers and feeling that I need to experience a wide range of emotions), but the unescorted leave was essential to allow me to go AWOL (spending a few days in Stirling, staying at the Willy Wallace hostel, using the internet and writing a double-sided A5 leaflet which I got printed on recycled paper and called the second newsletter of my Foundation for PR-based Socialism (where PR stands for “proportional representation”) to hand out at a demonstration for Scottish independence in Edinburgh.
At the time of writing this page, 18 July 2007, I am gradually coming off the Lamotrigine drug, 50mg at a time, by refusing to take some of the tablets I am offered. I strongly suspect that my escorted leave will be removed soon on those grounds, so that I will be unable to use the internet (for a while).
I am also on a tranquilliser (valium, otherwise known as Diazepam) and a depot (weekly injection) of an anti-psychotic drug (respiridone, also known as Respirdal Consta). I know, due to most of the new improvements I am making to my websites being of good quality, but the occasional one being of very low quality (in not making points effectively and in making many spelling mistakes which is unusual for me nowadays) that one of the drugs is kicking in with different effects at certain times.
[I noticed this problem with olanzapine (brand name Zyprexa), occasionally making me irrationally pessimistic
. Incredibly and appallingly, olanzapine is sometimes used to treat depression, and I once came across somebody on my psychiatric ward who had cut himself on his head in many places, disfiguring himself for life. Despite this, he was kept on the drug and subsequently cut himself in many more places. Another olanzapine user I came across was an SSP member living in Edinburgh, who had become convinced that he must have been ill because he had thought that his brother was in MI5. It transpired that his brother used to be a member of the Socialist Workers Party, which is indeed heavily infiltrated by organisations on the side of big business like MI5. Nevertheless, this SSP member was stable on the drug, and thinking rationally enough for me to conclude that it would be better for him to stay on it rather than come off it – it could have been a particularly big risk to come off it suddenly. I have set up an ‘anti-olanzapine’ discussion group based around opposition to that drug and the mental health establishment generally.]I will be able to come off the valium too, since it only comes in tablet form and cannot be injected (and although theoretically they can force tablets down your throats this is very rare and I think this has only happened to me once).
I have a right to a tribunal soon (you can get one every three months in Scotland which is far better than the situation in England and Wales where they are only obliged to grant you one at an arbitrary point during your section). In order to be rational enough to win that tribunal, I think it is necessary to come off Lamotrigine and valium. However, I will not be able to come off the respiridone depot, which is at a very high dose (37.5mg weekly, one and a half times the limit beyond which the doctor needs to get special permission to administer) because I can be forcibly injected with it.
I have started formulating a series of demands that I want to discuss with my Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP), Nicola Sturgeon, who as well as being deputy leader of the Scottish National Party and Deputy First Minister is Health Minister (and as far as I can tell is 100% genuine). I have been refused permission to go to one of her surgeries so I will ask her to visit me in hospital (and I will email her the contents of this page and possibly also a series of demands I am formulating) so that she will be able to propose a new Scottish Mental Health Bill. A new bill is being discussed in England and Wales (with some in Wales demanding a separate bill from that in England to be voted on by the Welsh Assembly), so my discussions with her could have repercussions elsewhere in Britain and indeed the world.
My current consultant, Dr Michael Taylor, looks like (due to having a shaven head) and behaves like a fascist, and since he will not even cooperate when I put forward my views of an ethical form of capitalism, it is only rational to conclude that he is in favour of a fascist society like that in Nazi Germany. The junior psychiatrists have been much better, and have had some power over medication and leave when the consultant is away, but usually Dr Taylor has full control over medication, leave and possible transfer to another ward. [The most junior of the psychiatrists, an Asian doctor called Pooja, has just left which will probably enable Dr Taylor to come down harder on me.] He is using this dictatorial control against me and has only relinquished control (on two occasions) when he knows that the doctor he is transferring me to is also dodgy (but not necessarily as dodgy as him).
The second most discriminated against sector of society is disabled people; fairly recently there were about 50% unemployed, but some legislation has been passed countering discrimination against disabled people in the workplace.
People who have spent time on psychiatric wards, especially if that is happened more than once, are even more discriminated against, because for many jobs (especially the better paid ones) it is necessary to describe your medical history, and you can perfectly legally be refused a job on the grounds that you are mentally unstable. If you lie about your medical history when applying for a job, you can be sacked if your employers later find that out.
If you want insurance to travel abroad, then you face the problem that insurance companies will not cover pre-existing conditions. When I wanted travel insurance, I had to search for quite a while before I found an insurance company that didn’t require me to tell it my alleged pre-existing condition in advance.
If you are a former or current psychiatric patient, or have recently acquired a disability, you can also be discriminated against if you want to drive a car, because you are supposed to inform bureaucrats at the DVLA of any changes in your medical condition. If you are a former or current psychiatric patient and tell them, then they will suspend your driving licence for a period of time (which I have been told is usually twelve months) until they, after consultation with your psychiatrists decide that you are well enough to drive again. If you fail to inform them, then your driving licence and insurance will be invalid, and your insurers will not pay up if you are involved in an accident. You will also have broken the law. Despite this, many psychiatric patients are not told about this aspect of the law and drive illegally after discharge. [It was only because I asked when I should drive again that I found out about it.]
Most, if not all, anti-psychotic drugs (and some mood stabilisers) make you drowsy, for a period of time at least – supposedly as a side effect but I think that it is a deliberate property of those drugs to make people who think there are conspiracies going on in society, i.e. pretty much everyone, and get targeted by conspiratorial organisations because we are becoming a threat to control of society by big business, less effective as political activists because we have a tendency of failing to concentrate or even falling asleep in meetings. Some medications are worse than others as far as drowsiness is concerned – Clozaril seems to be the worst anti-psychotic drug in that regard while Respiridone depots which I am currently on, seem to be the best. When I was on the Depakote mood stabiliser, it made me sleep for quite a long time at night and often made me drowsy during the day. There is advice on the containers of anti-psychotic drugs warning people that they may cause drowsiness and not to drive or operate machinery if affected.
I was once in hospital in Barcelona, during a period of mass anti-capitalist protests. The Spanish (or Catalan) way of treating psychiatric patients is completely different – they actually gave me a hallucinogenic drug that made croissants taste like fruit! I remembered that political protests had been organised in the Philippines by mobile phone, asking the receiver to pass the message on with no indication who had initiated the call for a protest. I therefore used the same technique, without a mobile phone but by calling out to people outside to organise a “Free Steve Wallis” demo at a particular time outside the hospital (which I didn’t know the name of). I didn’t know enough Spanish (or Catalan) so I had to rely on English, but I heard some beeps from cars after I had made the request, so I knew the message had got out. I don’t know how many people turned up but it sounded like over a hundred. I talked to them from my hospital bed, and I could tell by the crowd’s response that they had heard. Some of them came in on two occasions, when I requested them to, and they came past my bed and talked to members of staff. It did not lead to my release but it was nevertheless successful. The only reason it worked was the fact that there were a large number of anti-capitalist/globalisation protests and meetings during a period of three days in Barcelona. I tried calling for demonstrations in my support in Manchester and Glasgow, by leafleting and sending text messages, but these calls were unsuccessful.
Another disability issue that I am particularly concerned about is wheelchair access. On a visit to San Francisco, I discovered that all buses in that city had been converted to have wheelchair lifts, so a wheelchair user could drive onto the lift, and it would raise them up to the height of the bus floor so that they could drive to a place to park the wheelchair.
In contrast, most buses in Manchester are completely unusable by anyone in a wheelchair, because they have steps and/or a handrail down the middle of the entrance. There are some “low floor” buses, which are supposed to be suitable for wheelchairs and pushchairs but some wheelchair users require somebody to push them onto the bus, depriving them of the independence most of them seek (for some if not all of the time). Ridiculously, the indication that some of those buses are (reasonably) suitable for wheelchairs and pushchairs is shown on the side rather than the front of the bus, so you have to wait for the bus to stop before you know it is suitable (unless you know it is suitable according to the timetable)!
The Disabled People’s Direct Action Network (DAN) mobilised disabled people into carrying out direct action like getting in the way of buses; such action led to the introduction of low floor buses in Manchester, and the MetroLink tram system was introduced with wheelchair users in mind, having raised parts of platforms so that they can drive from the platform onto the tram or vice versa without having to negotiate a step. A lodger of mine, Rachel Salmon, whose disability was visual impairment (only being able to read large text), took part in DAN activities, and went on to write a Militant pamphlet on disability and moved to London where she was employed by the National Coalition of Disabled People.
One thing that Rachel taught me was that disabled people want rights not charity, and disabled people regularly picketed the BBC’s telethon appeal “Children in Need” and on the odd occasion have got inside and made a protest on air. My general attitude to charity is that it lets governments off the hook, and if all the people who got involved in raising money for charities got involved in campaigns and preferably socialist organisations instead, then there would be a world socialist revolution much sooner which would actually solve the problems that charities are designed to alleviate. Some charities are better than others, however, and some do campaign including those involved in the “Make Poverty History” coalition.
The buses in San Francisco were obviously not converted due to the caring attitude of the local government in that city – it presumably came about as a result of a large number of wheelchair users getting organised to demand proper access. Although they were once scattered around the USA, most of the best activists had clearly moved to San Francisco to get real change. Apart from problems with public transport, many public buildings (particularly restaurants and pubs) are inaccessible to wheelchair users; even though many can be entered if a step is negotiated, few of them have accessible toilets. I have heard that Bristol is the city where most of the best wheelchair users have congregated in the UK, and plan to do sustained activities there in the future.
Insurance companies discriminate against people living on ground floor flats, by refusing to pay out if you were out of the flat when you were burgled and you left a window open. I found this out when I rented a ground floor flat in Manchester City Centre (while waiting to sell my house in Moss Side) and would probably have chosen to avoid the ground floor when I bought a new flat in Fallowfield, but the only flat left available that the building company would have ready when I wanted one was on the ground floor. Both flats are in buildings that are only three storeys tall, so they don’t have lifts. I once invited a homeless person to stay with me in my Fallowfield flat for a while, and he did leave the windows open and a lot of CDs were stolen, which weren’t covered. Nevertheless, this turned out to be very useful because I was running out of space for all my CDs, and I could replenish my CD collection with better ones without wondering whether or not it was worth buying what I wanted due to the amount of space. Although no disabled person has so far visited me in my flat, I now feel that it is important for me to be able to invite wheelchair users to visit me, considering my strength of feeling on the issue of disabled people’s rights generally.
I have set up a Campaign for Sanity in the NHS, as a virtual organisation with a website and discussion group. The website is currently about two years out-of-date but I think it is a good starting point for discussions about new mental health bills that they are trying to pass in England and Wales, and that I would like the Scottish National Party to put forward in Scotland through discussions with my MSP and Health Minister Nicola Sturgeon.
