Car insurance vs National Insurance infographic If you glance at your payslip at the end of the month, your eyes probably dart straight to the biggest numbers: your gross pay, the income tax deduction, and that final, crucial net figure that lands in your bank account. But there’s another line item sitting quietly next to income tax, one that has been the focus of fierce political debate, policy shifts, and front-page news lately: National Insurance Contributions (NICs). To m

Disappointed Pete Disappointment is one of the quieter companions of dementia. It doesn’t arrive with drama or noise; instead, it slips into your day almost unnoticed - a name that won’t surface, a task that suddenly feels unfamiliar, a conversation that drifts away before you can catch it. These moments can sting. They can feel unfair. They can make you question your abilities or your identity. But disappointment isn’t a sign of failure. It is a sign of being human. We all e

Introduction Campaigning is supposed to be about voice; about amplifying the people most affected, about speaking truth to power, about shaping change that actually improves lives. Yet as someone living with dementia, I’ve learned a difficult truth: many dementia charities don’t represent me when they campaign. They speak about dementia, around dementia, and sometimes even over people with dementia, but rarely with us, and almost never for us in a way that feels true, accurat

Introduction Have you ever stopped to wonder what would happen to your “digital self” if you suddenly weren't around to clear your browser history? We spend our entire lives building an invisible empire. There are the thousands of our family photos sitting in cloud storage, our online bank accounts with paperless statements that leave absolutely no physical trail, and that mountain of streaming subscriptions we secretly pay for but rarely use (Yep, guilty as charged). We writ

Meeting the Challenge of decline Living with young-onset Alzheimer’s disease has meant becoming an expert in a landscape that refuses to stay still. For a long time, I’ve mapped out my routines, found my workarounds, and established a feeling of control over my daily life. I tell myself that I know what to expect. But the reality of a progressive condition is that it is always moving, always reshaping the extent of what you can comfortably do. Lately, I’ve been noticing a shi

Building Global Services Introduction When you get a diagnosis like this before you are sixty-five, you quickly learn that the systems built to support you are often fragmented, outdated, and desperately lacking in consistency. But as I look beyond my own backyard, I see that this is not just a British problem; it is a global crisis of equity and voice. What infuriates me most is the wall of patronising assumptions we face the moment we receive our diagnosis. People in positi