• Concerns aired that tickets were falling into the wrong hands
• Club to work with United’s Disabled Supporters’ Association

Manchester United are to tighten up identification spot-checks to ensure tickets for disabled fans do not fall into the wrong hands.

The club have stressed that their No 1 priority for disabled supporters is to ensure only the appropriate people enter designated areas after a report in the Daily Mail claimed some fans were guilty of falsely gaining entry into disabled sections to watch matches, particularly away from home.

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A day with some blind and partially sighted walkers has shown me how much I barely notice – and how hard it is to find the right words

How many shades of green are there? Whatever the answer may be, I soon ran out of words to describe them. I was walking north along the Grand Union canal, trying and failing to adequately describe what I could see, to a friend who couldn’t. This was Dave Heeley , ultra-runner, who in 2008 became the first blind person to run seven marathons on seven continents in seven days. Today we were walking rather than running – which, with me guiding him, was just as well.

I had guided a blind adventurer once before when I took part in the television series Pilgrimage. One of my fellow pilgrims was the remarkable Amar Latif . We were high up on the side of a deep, lush valley in eastern Serbia. I was focused on the trickiness of the path itself, but Amar kept asking me to describe the vista. I looked down that valley at the mountains in the distance and simply didn’t know how or where to start. I had a bash, as there was plainly plenty of material to work with, but didn’t feel I had done justice to the richness of that scene.

Adrian Chiles is a broadcaster, writer and Guardian columnist

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Targeting people who need support for depression and anxiety will only make these growing problems worse

• Jay Watts is a clinical psychologist, psychotherapist and senior lecturer working in London

When does crude electioneering become a threat to public health? Rishi Sunak’s and Mel Stride’s relentless attack on disabled people , with a specific targeting of mental health claimants, will have damaging and potentially deadly consequences. Those of us working in acute psychiatric wards and community services can attest to the severe impact their suggestion of stopping disability benefits would have, and the pain caused by the callous manner in which they have delegitimised mental anguish.

Sunak has accused the benefits system of “ medicalising the everyday challenges and anxieties of life ”. Stride, the secretary of state for work and pensions, has labelled depression and anxiety as conditions potentially unworthy of welfare. He proposes vouchers, one-off grants and improved access to treatment and support as alternatives to cash benefits. This approach not only complicates the process with additional bureaucratic hurdles, but also insinuates that long-term needs can be addressed with temporary solutions, which is not feasible.

Jay Watts is a clinical psychologist, psychotherapist and senior lecturer working in London

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Jermyn Street theatre, London
Sara Ryan’s book about justice for her son, who died in an NHS unit aged 18, has been turned into a play with campaigning passion

In a church down the road from this theatre you can see a quilt, a loving tribute to Connor Sparrowhawk, who drowned in a bath in an NHS unit in 2013 aged 18. Each square was made by someone touched by Connor’s death and his mother’s campaign to uncover what happened.

Sara Ryan’s memoir Justice for Laughing Boy has been adapted by writer-director Stephen Unwin. The show itself is a bit of a patchwork quilt – heartfelt, colourful, bitty – held together by campaigning zeal.

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Jenny Hartland says special needs support is being handed over to staff with no experience, while Susan Buckley says teaching assistants are being saddled with extra work for no extra pay. Plus letters from Dr Jeff Penfold and Toby Wood

I am saddened but unsurprised by your report on the (mis)use of teaching assistants in schools ( Teaching assistants routinely cover lessons in England and Wales, survey finds, 26 April ). Back in 2005, I was a special needs teacher employed centrally by the local education authority, and worked in mainstream primary schools on a one-to-one basis with children with statements of special educational need. Around this time, funding for this service was being run down and transferred to individual schools. On two occasions, I was told by a headteacher that they would no longer be using our service – with all its resources and expertise – and would I please explain to a teaching assistant what I did.

The first time, to my shame, I complied. The second time I refused. Thirty-five years as a primary teacher – half of that time in special needs, with all the in-service training that accompanied the role – was not going to be reduced to a half-hour chat with an untrained assistant who was to take over my job, at a much reduced salary. What an insult to all concerned.
Jenny Hartland
York

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He was the first disabled actor to play Richard III at the RSC. As he appears as Shardlake, the star recalls the parts that made him – and explains why this latest character is like the Lone Ranger

Arthur Hughes wants to go on adventures. “When I was little,” he says, “I loved films. I loved Jurassic Park. I loved Back to the Future. I loved things I probably wasn’t supposed to watch, like Predator. And then of course I loved all the Disney classics. To go to a world that isn’t your own is so exciting. I wanted to tell stories like that.”

It was this desire that saw him first take to the stage in school plays, and then to eschew university in favour of drama school – although his parents persuaded him to apply to both, just in case. “There was nothing else I wanted to do,” he says. The gamble paid off as he has landed some huge roles – including being the first disabled actor to play Richard III at the RSC, and co-starring in the BBC drama Then Barbara Met Alan, the first primetime drama about the disability rights movement . To hear him tell it, his whole career has been one big thrill.

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Largest trainer of dogs in country is trying to prevent an estimated £20m funding gap opening up by 2026.

Guide Dogs UK, the largest trainer of dogs in the country, is to make about 160 people redundant – around 9% of its workforce – to prevent an estimated £20m funding gap opening up by 2026.

The charity blamed Covid and the cost of living crisis: veterinary bills have increased by almost 20% and pet food bills by 12% since 2023, with further increases expected.

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What ministers herald as key reform is in fact idiotic and unworkable. The plans would be laughable if they weren’t so harmful

There is a scene in The Simpsons in which the villainous Mr Burns enlists a team of monkeys to reproduce a Charles Dickens novel on the cheap. Hunched over a row of typewriters, the simians cannot get the job done without a range of bumbling typos.

I thought of this as I watched Mel Stride, the work and pensions secretary, on Monday set out so-called cost-saving changes to the flagship disability benefit , personal independence payment (Pip), in what he described as “probably the most fundamental reforms in a generation”.

Frances Ryan is a Guardian columnist

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Clinicians say crackdown on people eligible for Pip payments does not address UK’s long-term sickness problem

Mentally ill, sick and disabled people are being used as a “political football” to make the government seem tough rather than addressing the causes of the UK’s growing long-term sickness problem, campaigners have warned, as ministers unveiled tentative proposals to cut disability benefits.

Potentially thousands of people claiming personal independence payment (Pip) could lose the benefit – currently worth between £29 and £184 a week – under changes designed to tighten eligibility and, where possible, replace monthly cash payments with one-off vouchers or access to specialist support.

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