Britain’s political and media class advocate policies that leave disabled people hungry and dirty. Why are we expected to settle for this?
There is a longstanding practice in UK politics and media to force disabled people to fight for their basic rights – a kind of gladiatorial scrap in which the Colosseum is replaced by the set of Good Morning Britain.
With the government’s welfare reform bill just passed by MPs, this has felt all the more stark. In the last week alone, the leader of the opposition, Kemi Badenoch, has used a speech to declare she does not “believe” that one in four people are disabled, as if the Equality Act were based on vibes. “Twenty-eight million people in Britain are working to pay the wages and benefits of 28 million others,” she went on. “The rider is as big as the horse.”
Frances Ryan is a Guardian columnist. She is the author of Who Wants Normal? The Disabled Girls’ Guide to Life
