That’s what they think…

Lately, I have been busy with other commitments and have felt lethargic/ultra tired so haven’t been able to fit in a blog. When I do get the time to write a post, it’s either me telling you about an event in my life (i.e. when I attended the Access All Areas conference a couple of weeks ago) or an issue that I desperately want to air my views on. Today is the latter and as you may have predicted, the subject I want to discuss is Lord Freud and his, some might say, controversial views on disabled people.

In case you don’t know, the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Work and Pensions was secretly recorded at a fringe meeting at the Conservative Party conference last month saying that “There is a group - and I know exactly who you mean - where actually, as you say, they're not worth the full wage”. He then suggested that scrapping the minimum wage was a sound idea that the Tories would look into because “if someone wants to work for £2 an hour, and it's working, can we actually?”

My first issue with what the great grandson of Psychologist Sigmund Freud is that he brandishes disabled people as a mere “group”, thus implying that they are a problem that he could do without. The most offensive part of his comments was obviously when he said that “they are not worth the full wage”. I do not need to go into detail about why that particular phrase is out of order and almost a throwback to the days when sexism and racism were rife within employment. Also, nobody within their right mind would want to “work for £2 an hour”, so if people do that would suggest that maybe they have mental illness and it is wrong for employers to exploit that.

This may come as a surprise but I am so glad that Lord Freud made those comments and it has come to the public’s attention. Perhaps people will realise that the majority of politicians (not all), regardless of party, feel that disabled people are a useless drain on the British economy. Like I have said before, it is only the fear of a public backlash that prevents the government from rounding up the worthless and exterminating them. Minority groups have been killed on mass before for ruining the economy so there is no reason why disabled people cannot be made the scapegoats.

What annoys me though is whenever the subject of disability is raised, David Cameron brings up his dead father and son who were both disabled as if that makes his attack on the less-able members of society more acceptable. It would be like ‘Wheelchair Boy’ slapping someone around the face and then saying “in my defence, I am disabled”. The Prime Minister’s stringent cuts on social care and the NHS, as well as the infamous bedroom tax, make it clear that he does not care about hitting disabled people the hardest. Emotively speaking about disabled members of his family is two faced and shows that he is simply trying to manipulate the electorate into thinking he is Mr. Nice Guy.

Bye for now!